The Congressional Joint Economic Committee (JEC) released today a new wage gap report and study on women’s key role in the US economy. In a press conference today, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Co-Chair of the JEC released the report that contains a “gold mine” of information concerning women’s economic status. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-WI), and Eleanor Smeal, President of the Feminist Majority, joined Maloney in releasing the report at the Capitol today. The wage gap for women persists at 77 cents for every dollar a man makes, and this study reveals that senior women experience the largest wage gap. On the average, a woman loses approximately $430,000 due to the wage gap over the course of her career. For full-time women workers over 50 years old, the gap is 75 cents to a man’s dollar; while it is 80 cents for all women ages 16 and over. The new wage gap was also broken down on a state-by-state basis and revealed larger gaps in some states. For example, the largest wage gap for women over 50 years old was in Kentucky, where women earn just 62.8 cents on the dollar or a 37 percent gap, followed closely by Massachusetts where women over 50 make 64.1 cents per dollar of their male counterparts. The top ten wage gap states for women over 50 are: Kentucky, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Kansas, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Illinois.
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