Wage Gap

For the last decade, the wage gap for women has barely budged – the typical women who works full time, year round still only makes 77 cents for every dollar paid to her male counterpart. As highlighted by a recent Bloomberg Businessweek article, there is a gender wage gap in virtually all jobs. Out of 265 major occupations, women’s median salary only exceeded men’s in one – personal care workers. The wage gap also occurs at all education levels, after experience is taken into account, and it gets worse as women’s careers progress. All told, even when accounting for a number of factors that can be expected to impact wages, it still exists. In fact, recent research shows that more than 40 percent of the wage gap is still unexplained, even after considering educational background, occupation, industry, work experience, union status, and race.

Despite this evidence of persistent unfair pay, recent weeks have also seen two oddly optimistic articles about women’s earnings. Let’s see what they’re so excited about:

First, Anya Kamenetz tries to reconcile why women’s earnings haven’t increased while their levels of education have. She concludes that women’s earnings are falling behind because (1) they have kids, (2) they chose jobs that don’t pay well, and (3) they are not “bold” or assertive. The onus in her explanation falls for the most part on women themselves – though she notes the structural element of some of these pieces, her answer is largely about planning correctly and making different choices. Who knew it was so easy – women can just make different choices and they’ll be paid fairly! This answer ignores the fact that even women who aren’t mothers see a wage gap. It ignores the fact that “women’s” jobs pay less precisely because women chose them – because women’s work is devalued – and, as noted above, that women are paid less even when they do chose the same profession as men. It ignores the fact that women often get punished for being bold or assertive. And the idea that these women might face discrimination? Not even mentioned. Read more »

It’s a proven fact that the mere presence of babies can turn normal, functioning adults into blabbering idiots who suddenly feel the need to gesticulate wildly and constantly shift voice intonation while describing something as simple as “that big doggy over there!” But new research suggests that exactly what we blabber may be influenced by the sex of the young child we’re blabbering at – details that could have a long-term impact on child development.

In a new study at the University of Delaware, researchers found that parents talk about “number concepts” twice as much to male toddlers as to female toddlers. According to the study: “For cardinal-numbers speech, in which a number is attached to an obvious noun reference — ‘Here are five raisins’ or ‘Look at those two beds’ — the difference was even larger. Mothers were three times more likely to use such formulations while talking to boys.”

The study was based on observations of parents speaking to their children aged between 22 and 27 months, meaning that girls may be exposed to less math than are boys before they are even able to count to “ten” – imagine the size of the gap that exists by the time they are eighteen and signing up for Calculus! Read more »

The wage gap the National Women’s Law Center reports at the national and state levels are the same ones 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 are the earnings made by an individual at the 50^th percentile – the worker 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 what people get paid for working. Working full time means working at least 35 hours a week and working year round means working at least 50 weeks during the last twelve months (This includes sick leave and paid vacation. School personnel are also included if they are returning to work in the fall). Read more »

It often happens to me in airports. Or sometimes on road trips to outlet malls. I’ll be standing around, overwhelmed by gastronomic aromas, weak with hunger, clutching a fistful of change, and yet, for some reason, unable to decide which fast food establishment to patronize. KFC or McDonalds? Taco Bell or Wendy’s?

Turns out, it matters even less than you think. That’s because many of those restaurants are serving up the same meat – Tyson meat. According to Bloomberg.com, Tyson Foods, Inc. is the biggest meat processor in the country, providing chicken, beef and pork to fast food chains, grocery stores, and restaurants across the U.S. Last year, its net income reached $780 million. Read more »

For more about state poverty and wage numbers, please go to our overview page on the state-by-state 2010 Census data.

Just last week, the Census Bureau released data that showed no improvement in the wage gap – nationally, women who worked full time, year round were paid 23 cents less for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. This gap in earnings totals to nearly $11,000.

The wage gap for women of color was even worse. Black and Hispanic women working full time, year round were paid only 62 cents and 54 cents, respectively, for every dollar paid to their white, non-Hispanic male counterparts – no substantial differences from 2009. Read more »

In addition to the analysis we’ve done on the poverty data this week, we’ve also examined Census data on median earnings. The results are clear – the wage gap persists. Since 2009, the wage gap remains unchanged and has only shrunk by three cents over the last decade. Read more »