On equal pay, D.C. comes out on top

This is the question you’re likely to ask when you glance at the National Women’s Law Center’s state-by-state analysis of Census Bureau statistics on how women fare compared to men when it comes to compensation.
 

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Fatima Goss-Graves, vice president for education and employment at the National Women’s Law Center, said it reflects the outsized role the federal government plays in Washington’s labor market. (Maryland, for what it’s worth, occupies the nation’s number-three spot at 86 cents, just behind Vermont.)

“There’s more transparency in wages,” said Goss-Graves, whose advocacy group is non-partisan. “There are pay scales that are clear, and there are no penalties for talking about what people make.”

Goss-Graves said it is harder to explain the discrepancy between men and women in Wyoming, though she said contributors likely include the fact that women and men segregate into different occupations and women are punished professionally for their larger responsibility for care-giving.