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Salary inequites boost poverty, study
shows
By ARTHUR JONES
NCR Staff Washington
If women received the same pay as men for comparable work, the
incidence of U.S. poverty would drop dramatically, according to a new study. As
it is, women, on average, lose more than $4,000 a year in wages due to lower
pay scales.
The study, jointly released Feb. 24 by the AFL-CIO and the
Institute for Womens Policy Research, states:
- If married women were paid the same as comparable men, their
family incomes would rise by nearly 6 percent, and their families poverty
would drop from 2.1 percent to 0.8 percent.
- If single working mothers earned the same as comparable men,
their family incomes would increase by nearly 17 percent. Their poverty rates
would be halfed, from 25.3 percent to 12.6 percent.
- If single women were paid comparably, their incomes would rise
by 13.4 percent, and their poverty rates would be reduced from 6.3 percent to 1
percent.
Other analysis shows that women who work full-time are paid only
74 cents for every dollar men earn -- $148 less each week; full-time women of
color earn only 64 cents for every male dollar -- $210 less per week.
Income inequality issues are not new, but there is a renewed
revival of concern. In a 1997 study, "Ask a Working Woman," one third of all
women and half of all African-American women told AFL-CIO researchers they do
not have equal pay in their jobs. This year, in his State of the Union address,
President Clinton declared his support for strengthening equal-pay
enforcement.
Even where the comparable pay news is good its bad. In
Washington, women earn 97 percent of what men make, but minority men in the
nations capital receive very low wages. Unequal pay for women is worst in
Michigan, Louisiana, Indiana, Montana, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming,
where women earn only 70 percent of comparable mens pay. Women of color
fare worse, earning less than 60 percent of mens rates, in Louisiana,
Montana, Nebraska, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah and Wyoming.
The best states -- comparably speaking -- for women are Arizona,
California, Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island -- but
even there women earn only 80 percent of the comparable male wage.
Men in "female-dominated" jobs -- clerical workers, cashiers,
librarians, child care -- suffer the same wage penalties as women, the report
stated.
National Catholic Reporter, March 5,
1999
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