Abby Lane, Fellow

The Census Bureau recently released data that showed no improvement in the wage gap — nationally, the typical woman who worked full time, year round was still paid just 77 cents for every dollar paid to her male counterpart in 2011. This gap hasn’t changed in a decade and it's even worse for women of color.

Last week, the Census Bureau released data from the American Community Survey, a survey that provides median earnings for men and women by state. Based on that data, NWLC has calculated the wage gap for each state. In 2011, the District of Columbia had the smallest wage gap — women working full time, year round, were paid 90.4 percent of what their male counterparts were paid. Following D.C. were Vermont (86.7 percent) and Maryland (86.0 percent). However, even in these states with smaller wage gaps, the difference in earnings was substantial. For example, while D.C. had the smallest wage gap of all the states, this gap in earnings still amounted to the typical woman earning $6,400 less in a year, as compared to her male counterpart.

In 2011, Wyoming had the largest wage gap, with the typical woman working full time, year round making just 66.6 percent of what her male counterpart made. Both Louisiana (68.8 percent) and Utah (69.0 percent) also had wage gaps of more than 30 cents. The gap in Wyoming amounts to more than $17,200 annually — equivalent to half of the typical woman's earnings in Wyoming in 2011.

Tomorrow, the Census Bureau will release new data on poverty, income, and health insurance in the U.S. in 2011. As we get ready to crunch numbers, we thought it would be helpful to take a deeper look at what these numbers tell us – and don’t tell us – about the wage gap.

The typical American woman who works full time, year round was still paid only 77 cents for every dollar paid to her male counterpart in 2010. For women of color, the gap is even larger. This blog post provides details about the wage gap measure that the Census Bureau and the National Women’s Law Center use, factors contributing to the wage gap, and how to shrink the gap.

What’s behind NWLC’s wage gap figure?

The wage gap figure that NWLC reports at the national level is the same as that reported by the Census Bureau – the median earnings of women full-time, year-round workers as a percentage of the median earnings of men full-time, year-round workers. Median earnings describe the earnings of a worker at the 50th percentile – right in the middle. Earnings include wages, salary, net self-employment income but not property income, government cash transfers or other cash income – so basically the money people see in their paychecks. Working full time is defined as working at least 35 hours a week and working year round means working at least 50 weeks during the last twelve months.

The national wage gap data come from the Current Population Survey and include workers 15 and older. The wage gap is not broken down by occupation or industry, though data on earnings by industry and occupation for women and men are available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.