Ashley Merritt packs an order for shipping at a warehouse in Lebanon, Tenn. on Dec. 1, 2014. (AP Photo)
American women essentially work for free for part of the year.
Everyone knows they earn less than their male colleagues. Even the White House has weighed in on this inequality, calculating that, on average, full-time working women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns.
President Barack Obama has thrown his support behind the Paycheck Fairness Act, a proposed law that updates and strengthens the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which made it illegal for employers to pay unequal wages to men and women who essentially perform the same work.
A new chart shows just how much more money the men are pocketing in a state-by-state analysis.
The worst state for working women is Louisiana, where the ladies earn 34 percent less money than men. And while Washington, D.C. gets a bad rap for political gridlock on Capitol Hill, the nation’s capital has the smallest pay gap — 9 percent — between men and women.
New York, Maryland, Arizona and California are also among the top states for working women. At the bottom of the list are Wyoming, West Virginia, Utah and North Dakota.
Among minorities, non-Hispanic White women and Asian women earn more than women from other ethnic groups. And while Hispanic women make less money than females from all other ethnic groups, they only earn 10 percent less than Hispanic men.
Expert Market used a man’s salary as a 52-week baseline and calculated the date when women are theoretically working for free in each state — that is, when the money would run out if their weekly pay rate were the same as the men’s but their salary stayed the same.
While there are varying degrees of disparity across the country, the bottom line remains that women are still earning less than men in all 50 states.
This statistic that women make less than men has been debunked many times. Pres. Obama is even no longer saying this. If you account for experience and hours worked, in some cases women make more than men, especially for 20 year olds.