Analysis shows working women in Virginia earn 79 cents for every dollar paid to men.
Published
Just in time for the observation Tuesday of Equal Pay Day, a new analysis shows how the gender-based wage gap plays out in Virginia.
According to a report from the National Partnership for Women & Families released Monday, women employed full time in Virginia are paid on average of $41,545 per year, while a man who holds a full-time job is paid $52,453 per year.
Put another way women are paid 79 cents for every dollar paid to men, amounting to a yearly gap of $10,908.
That’s slightly above the national figure, with women working full time in the U.S. paid 78 cents for every dollar paid to men, with less money paid to women of color. The report, “An Unlevel Playing Field: America’s Gender-Based Wage Gap Binds of Discrimination and a Way Forward,” found that African-American women are paid 64 cents and Latinas are paid 56 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men.
In Virginia, African American women are paid 59 cents and Latinas are paid 52 cents according to the report.
Collectively, according to the partnership, Virginia women lose more than $13.7 billion every year.
The nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy group, based in Washington, D.C., said its report is based on the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
“This analysis shows that women and families are losing thousands of dollars in critical income each year that could pay for significant amounts of food, rent, gas and other basic necessities. The effects ripple throughout our economy,” Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, said in a statement.
According to a specific analysis of Virginia, if the gap between men’s and women’s wages were eliminated, a full-time working woman could afford food for nearly two more years, mortgage and utilities for seven more months, rent for 10 more months, or more than 3,400 gallons of gas.
The report said the country’s wage gap has been closing at a rate of less than half a cent per year since passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963. At that rate, experts say America’s women will not be paid equally to men for another 43 years.
The report outlines several measures that the partnership says would help close the wage gap, including fair and family-friendly workplace policies. Members of Congress reintroduced three proposals supported by the partnership so far this year: the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would help break patterns of pay discrimination and establish stronger workplace protections for women; the Healthy Families Act, which would establish a national paid sick days standard; and the Family And Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act, which would create a national paid family and medical leave insurance program.
Other measures discussed in the report include an increase in the minimum wage and protections for pregnant workers.
Equal Pay Day, which falls on April 14 this year, marks how far into the year women must work in order to catch up with what men were paid the year before. The findings for each state, state rankings, analyses specific to women of color are available at www.NationalPartnership.org/Gap.
