Despite having the nickname “The Equality State,” Wyoming has the highest wage gap by gender and lowest number of female-owned businesses in the United States.
Richelle Keinath, executive director of the Wyoming Women’s Foundation, said she thinks that though Wyoming has fallen short of its nickname many times before, this report is not an accurate assessment of the income gap between men and women in the state. She said the report does not focus solely on discrimination in the workplace, but rather, is a result of the types of jobs that are available to men versus women in Wyoming.
“We want folks to know there are other reasons why the wage gap exists and there are ways to address it,” she said.
The report indicates that women in Wyoming earn 65 cents for every dollar men earn. Nationally, the ratio is 73 cents for every dollar.
The gender wage gap has been an ongoing issue in the United States for decades. President Barack Obama addressed it earlier this year during his State of the Union address.
“You know, today, women make up about half our workforce, but they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns,” the President said. “That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment. Women deserve equal pay for equal work.”
Keinath said that the President’s assertion is not the case in Wyoming.
“Men and women don’t do the same kind of work,” she said.
Segregation between industrial and professional jobs is the main factor behind this wage gap, she said.
“The kinds of jobs that men typically have in Wyoming are paid above the national average, and jobs that are typically female and paid below the national average,” Keinath said.
According to the Wyoming Council for Women’s Issues, the state is packed with industrial, construction and energy-sector jobs which are typically higher paying and male dominated. Meanwhile, women are more likely to work a part-time lower-paying job, to accommodate their families’ schedules.
In Wyoming, women tend to work in professional, office, administrative support, sales and service occupations and these jobs are paid below the national average, Keinath said.
“If you look at construction work, those jobs are paid above the national average [in Wyoming],” Keinath said. “Then, if you look at a paralegal or a nurse, those jobs are paid below the national average.”
According to the Laramie Boomerang, without counting the mineral extraction and construction industries, Wyoming women earn just 72 cents per $1 for men.
The article said the largest wage gap can be found in health care and social assistance with women earning just 46 percent of what men earn.
Women in Wyoming lose about $1.23 million per year according to the report, and 26 percent of female headed households live in poverty as a result of the large income gap. Because married women earn about 36 percent of their family’s total income, income gap becomes not only an issue for the family, but the community as well.
“The whole household has less to live on,” Keinath said. “It affects their children’s education, their opportunities to learn and their ability to pay for quality day care.”
“Two solutions to narrow the wage gap are raising salaries to market value and breaking occupational and industrial sex segregation,” Keinath said. “Attempting to raise salaries in jobs that are traditionally female would help, as well as getting women into more non-traditional jobs. Programs like CLIMB Wyoming encourage women to go into non-traditional fields.”
CLIMB Wyoming is a non-profit organization, that trains and places low-income single mothers in careers that will help them successfully support their families.
On the flip side, Washington, D.C. has the smallest income gap based on gender, with women making 90 cents to every dollar men make.
The income gap between men and women continues to exist decades after the Equal Pay Act was signed by President John Kennedy. This Act forbids pay discrimination on the basis of gender.
