A new state-level analysis of lifetime median earnings by the National Women’s Law Center has found a big gap between men and women. And an even larger gap between white men and women of color.
The NWLC based its “lifetime wage gap” on data showing the difference between women’s and men’s median annual earnings for full-time, year-round workers, multiplied by 40 years. The results were not adjusted for inflation. Nationwide, the analysis shows:
Women would lose $430,480 over the course of a 40-year career. For Latinas the career losses mount to $1,007,080, and for African American women the losses are $877,480. [...]
Compared to the earnings of white, non-Hispanic men, the lifetime wage gap would amount to more than $1 million for Asian American women in one state, for African American women in six states, for Native American women in 13 states, and for Latinas in 23 states.
The differences among the states and District of Columbia, which NWLC treated as a state, are large.
In D.C., for instance, the “lifetime wage gap losses” for all women compared to white, non-Hispanic men amounts to $289,000. But the differences by race and ethnicity are stark: Latinas’ losses come in at $1.8 million, African American women’s at $1.6 million, American Indian women’s at $1.1 million, and Asian American women’s at $908,000.
In California, for Latinas the “lifetime wage gap losses” are $1.6 million, for African American women $1.0 million, for American Indian women $1.4 million, and for Asian American women $791,000.
Sarah McGregor writes:
"We're in a moment where women are making up an increasing part of the workforce and there's a firm recognition that their salaries matter to themselves, but also to their families' economic security," Fatima Goss Graves, a senior vice president at NWLC, said by phone. "We've seen very prominent figures call attention to the wage gap and that's so critical because it highlights no industry is immune to it." [...]
“[Women of color] are dealing with the double barriers of race and gender discrimination,'' Graves said. ''And some of it is the concentration of women of color in some of the lowest-paid fields. They still make up a tiny percentage of workers in some of the higher-paid fields."
NWLC’s analysis did not control for the fact that women tend to work in lower-paying occupations and have far more career interruptions than men caused by caregiving, including, of course, still being the primary child-rearers. Critics of the whole idea that the male-female wage gap is based on discrimination blame the differences on these choices.
But a Cornell University study published in January found that 8 cents of the pay gap remains even when career choice and interruptions are factored in. And a 2012 study by the American Association of University Women showed that in the first year out of school working in the same jobs as men, women had already started out behind in wages. That gap follows them throughout their lives, meaning it’s harder for a woman to provide for herself and her family. The difference in wages obviously affects her retirement security as well.