Gender wage gap faced by state’s women and families

If the gap were closed, according to a group concerned with fairness in the marketplace, South Carolina women could better afford their food and other bills. An analysis by the National Partnership for Women and Families released for Equal Pay Day tomorrow reveals the size of the gender wage gap and its detrimental effects on the spending power of South Carolina women. Women employed full time, year-round in South Carolina are paid 81 cents for every dollar paid to men, amounting to a yearly gap of $8,056. That means South Carolina women lose a combined total of more than $10 billion every year – money that could strengthen the state economy and is especially significant for the more than 271,000 South Carolina households headed by women, 31 percent of which are in poverty. “Equal Pay Day is a painful reminder that women in this country have had to work more than three months into this year just to catch up with what men were paid last year,” said Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership. “This analysis shows just how damaging that lost income can be for women and their families, as well as the economy and the businesses that depend on women’s purchasing power. Entire communities, states and our country suffer because lawmakers have not done nearly enough to end wage discrimination or to advance the fair and family friendly workplace policies that would help erase the wage gap.” South Carolina is not the only state with a wage gap. In fact, every state and 94 percent of the country’s congressional districts have one. The National Partnership finds that the largest cents-on-the-dollar differences in the country are in Wyoming, Louisiana, West Virginia, Utah and North Dakota. The smallest cents-on-the-dollar differences are in New York, Delaware and Florida. The National Partnership’s analysis of the wage gap was released in advance of Equal Pay Day, which is April 4 this year. Equal Pay Day marks how far into the New Year women must work in order to catch up with what men were paid in the year before. The findings for all states are available in map form at NationalPartnership.org/Gap, in addition to analyses of the wage gap at the national level, in the 20 states with the largest numbers of Black women and Latinas who work full time, in more than 20 major metropolitan areas, and in all 435 congressional districts.