Cities That Pay Women The Least: 24/7 Wall St.

From 24/7 Wall St.: March is Women’s History Month, and March 8th is International Women’s Day. First observed in the U.S. on February 28, 1909, the day has come to symbolize women’s struggles for equal rights. While it’s been nearly a century since women across the country won the right to vote and the right to work alongside men, equal pay continues to remain a distant goal.

Read the Worst-Paying Cities for Women

Since the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the salaries women earn compared to those of men has improved, albeit slowly. In 1963, women who worked full-time, year-round earned 58.9 percent of what men did in similar jobs with similar hours. Today, women make 77.4 percent of a man’s salary, according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Although pay inequality remains a problem across the country, the difference is not the same everywhere. In Los Angeles, the disparity is not nearly as bad, and women make nearly 90 percent of what men do. In Baton Rouge, the figure is closer to 63 percent. Based on an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau’s compensation data, 24/7 Wall St. calculated women’s compensation compared to that of men’s and identified the cities where the wage gap is the worst.

Unequal salary for women happens in rich and poor cities alike. In the Bridgeport, CT and San Jose, CA metropolitan areas, household median incomes are among the highest in the country. Despite this, women earn less than 74 percent of what men earn in these areas, putting both cities among the 15 worst out of the 100 largest metropolitan areas. In other metropolitan areas, including Chattanooga, TN and Augusta-Richmond County, GA, the median income is well-below the national average. Women who work there also earn far less than men.

An analysis by 24/7 Wall St. reveals that what these areas do have in common is a concentration of industries notorious for their large pay gap between men an women. Last year, in a separate analysis, 24/7 Wall St. identified the industries that have the greatest pay disparity between the sexes. According to this research, in some industries, women make as little as two-thirds of what men do, despite performing the same job. Sectors such as manufacturing of durable and nondurable goods and health care are among the worst at paying women the same as men. Other industries that pay women the worst include finance and utilities.

To identify the cities that pay women the least, 24/7 Wall St. compared the median incomes for the past 12 months of both men and women who worked full-time, year-round in the country’s 100 largest metropolitan statistical areas, based on data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. Information on the most unequal industries was calculated using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Department of Labor, the Census Bureau, as well as Catalyst, the leading nonprofit organization for expanding women in business, and The Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

These are the worst-paying cities for women, according to 24/7 Wall St.:

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Comments

[munki]

08:48 PM on 03/10/2012

Nothing surprises me...
We are not the best to enforce "equal" pay for "equal job" for men and women...

[Grannysue]

02:37 PM on 03/09/2012

I'm sure the Tpublicans are cheering this news, they will next ask that all States penalize working women for being women!!!

[edward60]

12:38 PM on 03/09/2012

one thing is certain, the Tparty is not the solution

[Jebbushnot]

08:01 AM on 03/09/2012

(UPDATED 2-22-12, below)

Today the Florida Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee passed a bill that will allow employers to pay a lower minimum wage to tipped employees, waiters and waitresses.

Florida Right Wing Legislature's attack on Women.

[Durrrrrr]

07:39 AM on 03/09/2012

Innumeracy is rampant at HuffPo:

MEDIAN income for men: $51,103
MEDIAN income for women: $32,385

"On AVERAGE, a full-time working woman doesn't even earn two thirds of what her male counterpart earns"

I rest my case.

[El Chingaso]

01:46 PM on 03/09/2012

Ever considered other factors?

For instance, according to a Whitehall II study, "Socioeconomic and Sex Differentials in Reason for Sickness Absence," female employees have far higher absenteeism rates than their male counterparts. For one's reading pleasure: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1757555/pdf/v055p00091.pdf

Thus, in terms of measuring the aggregate productivity scales of women v. men, the median figures quoted above "equalize" out...rather nicely. Often times, "hard data" is preferable to "over-worn hyperbole."

[Durrrrrr]

07:36 AM on 03/09/2012

Lets not bother to control for education, years of experience, industry, etc and make an apples to oranges comparison. You have to be innumerate and void of any understanding of basic statistics to think these comparisons are valid.

[frank day]

01:32 PM on 03/09/2012

So you think they're valid?

[Durrrrrr]

04:34 PM on 03/09/2012

I could start talking about kurtosis and the second moment about the mean and you wouldn't have a clue what I was talking about.

[stephan67]

06:44 AM on 03/09/2012

GOP politicians : The women should stay home and cook dinner.

[jscratz]

06:49 AM on 03/09/2012

lol. Guess I am sexist because the last place I want my girlfriend to be is in my kitchen. :-)

[pcs5141]

12:27 PM on 03/09/2012

I have a lot of "fun" in the kitchen with my girl.

[dutchman]

06:40 AM on 03/09/2012

No surprise about Baton Rouge being the worst.  I did a lot of business there - and I couldn't believe the obvious sexism in the workplace.

Ladies - please vote Democrat!  You'll be glad you did!

[Nam-Myo-Ho-Renge-Kyo]

08:35 AM on 03/09/2012

off topic Dutch but check this out.

http://www.sovereignman.com/expat/facts-and-myths-about-renunciation-of-us-citizenship/

[dutchman]

11:11 AM on 03/09/2012

What the article states, and has been my own experience, is it's mainly people working overseas who renounce, since America is somewhat unique in taxing you no matter where you work.  

What I have NOT seen, and the article makes no mention of, is people leaving the US because of tax laws.  Instead, it's those who are already living/working overseas, which, again based on my experience, isn't as easy as you might think.  Most nations require you to have a company sponsoring you, and simply being rich isn't enough to get that.  Otherwise you're stuck with what are typically 90 day tourist visa restrictions.  

Now, the very richest among us may indeed be able to buy their way into other nations, but even that's probably a small list.  For example, if someone owns a company in America, that company is taxed in America no matter what.  Simply moving overseas doesn't help that person.  It's really only the idle rich that would be able to easily decamp to another nation.

Lastly, even with my asset tax proposal, most other nations will still tax rich people at higher rates.  And indeed, if they don't like my proposal, odds are that they don't like the current system either, and would have already left.

I'm a dual citizen myself, and having lived in three different nations outside the US, I can tell you that rich people in America have no reason to complain, either from the current system or the one I've proposed.

[Bleekerstreet]

06:10 AM on 03/09/2012

There should be no governmental unit, city, county, state or federal without parity in representation. Women are more than 50% of our population and voting strength.

[jscratz]

06:24 AM on 03/09/2012

Exactly.
By the way, love the picture. :-)
Best wishes from Stockholm.

[garystartswithg]

06:30 AM on 03/09/2012

women are often their own worst enemy, what i have seen personally is sociopaths rise to the top and they aren't willing to give anyone a little help up. a lot of lower ranking "women's jobs" have skill sets that are extremely undervalued, and that is something that needs to be fixed, and not too ironically when i have gotten into arguments dealing with issues of pay disparity its often with women.
i worked in state u libraries for 19 yrs -- technically a "women's job" and positions are rediculously underpaid and overworked. when i started the job of director was to make money -- you went to every social function in town and asked for handouts. now they cut budgets which means a lot people don't even have a job to complain about low pay anymore. and the sociopaths like to think they donald trump on a reality tv show. i had one tell me i was "proletariat" because i was complaining about the pay for my staff. you want to know what she did? cut my staff budget -- because she could and didn't like my complaining.
Long story short its the 21st century, and pay disparity is mandated by greedy women and men.

[nam medic]

06:00 AM on 03/09/2012

Washington, DC pays their woman the least. An Army Soldier, female medic, Private, makes 17 grand a year or $ 8.60 an hour. That is for a forty hour week. During training and deployments, 80 hour weeks are commonplace. You can be killed, make $4.30 an hour, sent anywhere on Earth, and read about the "problems" with woman's pay on the Huffpo. If you want to talk fairness, talk to a woman Soldier.

[garystartswithg]

06:36 AM on 03/09/2012

is that not on par with male medics? or are female medics separate, and if so that should be a real problem -- its the 21st century. .

[jscratz]

07:27 AM on 03/09/2012

Hello. Your post to me was removed (why?), but I had a chance to read it anyways. Interesting, I know somewhat who he was but have never read any of his writings. Of course I just did a quick google search to familiarize myself. If you could recommend a book or essay, I would be thankful.
And yes, I read in German also.

"Smith refutes the link between Strauss and neoconservative thought (a link that some commentators have controversially made), arguing that Strauss was never personally active in politics, never endorsed imperialism, and questioned the utility of political philosophy for the practice of politics. In particular, Strauss argued that Plato's myth of the Philosopher king should be read as a reductio ad absurdum, and that philosophers should understand politics, not in order to influence policy, except insofar as they can ensure philosophy's autonomy from politics.[37] Additionally, Mark Lilla has argued that the attribution to Strauss of neoconservative views contradicts a careful reading of Strauss' actual texts, in particular On Tyranny. Lilla summarizes Strauss as follows:
Philosophy must always be aware of the dangers of tyranny, as a threat to both political decency and the philosophical life. It must understand enough about politics to defend its own autonomy, without falling into the error of thinking that philosophy can shape the political world according to its own lights."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss

[enhancedvibes]

07:20 AM on 03/09/2012

A private makes that much, please be more clear. Pay is by rank not by occupation. Also, the pay is so low because 1) youre a private and 2) room and board are covered. That is really the only reason for military pay being so low. If you want to earn more money, go to college and become an officer. Infantry is not meant to be a career job.

[jscratz]

05:24 AM on 03/09/2012

Top Countries For Gender Equality: 2010 Gender Gap
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/12/top-countries-for-gender-_n_760012.html#s154780&title=Sweden__4

The interesting thing here is that the top 4 countries are "socialist" Scandinavian countries. I just don't understand how American "religious" conservatives can say they have morals and at the same time want to take away people's equal rights, healthcare, minumin wages, etc. I am a socialist. That does not make me against people making money. I am very successful here in Sweden. And I pay a very high tax rate. What it means is that I want to live in a society were people who didn't have my opportunities or just plain luck, have an acceptable standard of living with full healthcare, and other social services. And free education, so if you come from a disadvantaged family you, have an equal chance to be successful.
I am also an athiest. Yet, I have more "morals" than a "religous" conservative. In my opinion, anybody who is against "socialism" doesnt know what they are talking about or are just plain selfish.

[PitBull6]

04:54 AM on 03/09/2012

What a lousy title. Unless one works for the city government, cities don't pay people, individual companies do.

"Although pay inequality remains a problem across the country," It's only a problem if you don't recognize that pay disparity is mostly a matter of life choices .

[jscratz]

05:46 AM on 03/09/2012

Yes, sort of. But everyone does not have equal opportunities.

[PitBull6]

08:22 AM on 03/09/2012

I agree. No two people on earth have equal opportunities. Women have about 99.9% of the opportunities men do,but don't, on average, choose to become coal miners, firemen, or crab fishermen, or work as much overtime, or stay in their career field continuously despite having a family. They have great reasons to make these decisions but it does hurt their earning potential.

[GranE]

10:18 AM on 03/09/2012

You've missed the whole point. Its about equal pay for EQUAL WORK. When a male and a female do the exact same job they should get equal pay. Its not about life choices. Do you think that a woman who chooses to be a shrimper should be paid less for the shrimp she brings in? Jobs are defined. If a woman does the same job as males as defined, they should get equal pay.

[PitBull6]

01:35 PM on 03/09/2012

I think you've missed the whole point. Rarely do people who do the same work get the same pay. In wage jobs this is certainly true when it comes to seniority. This is especially true in salaried jobs when the same job title can command different pay levels (for education, experience, or even the employee *asking* for more.

It certainly is about life choices. If a woman decides to have a child and takes three years away from her career, should be paid the same as her male (or female, for that matter) peers who stay on the job? No.

In your shrimp example, if the man has been on the job for three years, his wage is going to be higher than someone just starting out, male or female. Yet the job is the same no?

One has to quit looking at this as (1) purely a "similar" or "comparable" job comparison and (2) as a sex issue. One has to take into account *all* of the variables which apply to pay and one has to realize we are talking about averages. Women don't paid less for being women. They get paid less for making decisions that most women make. There's nothing sexist about that unless you think that women are helpless victims who do not make their own choices and live at the mercy of women, which is simply ridiculous.

[El Chingaso]

04:24 PM on 03/09/2012

Female employees, on average, are more expensive for employers to maintain than male workers (higher absenteeism rates, maternity leave costs, and skill variances as a result of wide gaps in employment histories, just to name a few). Salaries are adjusted -- whether directly or indirectly -- to reflect such disparities. After all, it's just business, and employers are only concerned with bottom lines.

Can't approach an issue like this, either, without "objectively" factoring in all of employers' hard expenses, which are not open to subjective manipulation(s) via gender-based perceptions. It's kind of like using emotion -- instead of logic -- with the IRS: "Um...because I'm female, and because he makes more than me for doing the same job, 'I think' I will only pay this much in taxes." That wouldn't fly, man...

Too much gray area in the "fairness" angle. Quantitative approaches in this debate are more likely to lead to solutions...

[cccoyote]

03:35 AM on 03/09/2012

#WarOnWomen

[splashy]

03:04 AM on 03/09/2012

The women earn less, and are expected to do child care too. They get shafted no matter what.

[Ashok Hegde]

03:57 AM on 03/09/2012

They earn less because of the demands of child care. Parenting is sacrifice...parents can't compete with non-parents at work. It's not unfair.

[PitBull6]

04:55 AM on 03/09/2012

Actually i think married men with children earn more, on average, than unmarried men.

[Gloriousbastrd]

02:52 AM on 03/09/2012

Our country is turning all jobs into minimum wage jobs..what jobs are left

[jscratz]

05:49 AM on 03/09/2012

Yep. And the next conservative move is to lower the minimum wage. If you can't beat the Chinese, join them.