NE​W!

published 3/31/20

GENDER WAGE GAP

Wisconsin 79.7% - unchanged from 2019

United States 81.2% - up (narrower) from 80.8% in 2019

One way to better understand the wage gap is to look at the earnings distribution for women and men. Women are more heavily concentrated in the  lower end of the earning scale - particularly with median earnings less than $35,ooo per year.  In part, this is because women tend to cluster in different occupations and are less represented in STEM occupations.

Gender Wage Gap for Racial/Ethnic Minority Populations

Women from racial and ethnic minority populations have much higher wage gaps than would be suggested by the statewide gap. These range from Hispanic women with largest gap earning 57.2% of men's earnings, to Asian women at 76.3%.

Estimating these figures requires using the Census Bureau's 5-year average data, rather than the annual data used above. The statewide wage gap figure (above) uses annual data. Five-year data are preferred for this purpose because Census collects the data with a survey that samples populations. The smaller the group being surveyed, the less reliable any one number could. Be pooling data from a series of year, the dataset becomes large and the data more reliable. See the Census website for survey methodology and discussion about margin of error. 

WISCONSIN - GENDER WAGE GAP with Median Annual Earnings, by Race & Ethnicity, 2014-2018 5-yr avg Wage Gap shown as percent of women's earnings to mens
​WOMEN​	Median Annual Earnings	Gender Wage Gap
​All Women	$40,900	78.8%
White (not Hispanic)	$41,700	80.3%
Asian	$38,600	​76.3%
Native American	​$35,100	​67.7%
Black or African American	​$31,800	​62.3%
Hispanic	​$29,700	57.2%
MEN (all ​groups)	$51,900	----
​Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2018: ACS 5-Year Estimates Detailed Tables​, B20017 (series), Median earnings in the past 12 months (in 2018 inflation-adjusted dollars) by sex by work experience in the past 12 months for the population 16 years and over with earnings in the past 12 months. 2018 is the most recent year for which data are available​.

Among full-time, year-round workers, Hispanic women have the largest Gender Wage Gap, earning only 57 cents compared to every dollar earned by a man in Wisconsin. They are followed closely by African American women earning 62 cents on the dollar. 

Even between women there is a significant wage gap between white women and women of color. For example, Hispanic women's median annual earnings of $29,700 compared to $41,700 for white womene are equal to earnig 71 cents  for every dollar earned by a white woman, on average.

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WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH

Wisconsin Women You Should Know About ​

Update! In January 2020, Judge Maxine White became the
 first African American woman to serve on the W​​isconsin Court of Appeals