From today’s Forbes Magazine:
The gender pay gap is the most entrenched barrier to equality women face. It seems so simple: equal pay for equal work. But the formula is complicated in many companies because men outnumber women in C-suites, in leadership and management, in the most lucrative industries like banking, and in the higher-risk, higher-reward jobs – all of which skews the data and creates a rationale that is used to justify the pay gap.
The fact is, there is no valid reason for paying women less for equal performance, and doing so hamstrings the growth of our economy. A 2017 report by the Institute for Women’s Researchdemonstrates how equal pay for women could increase the U.S. economy by an incredible $512.6 billion.
Meanwhile, a confluence of factors continues to inhibit a woman’s ability to earn her worth, though many of them can be changes. Here are four things all women need to know to better their chances for equal pay:
Smart Asset researched the pay gap in 507 metro areas around the country and found that nationally, women make an average 70% of what men do in the same jobs. However, there are 51 Metro areas where the gap closes to 80% or better. Cities like LA, Las Vegas, Flagstaff, Arizona; Jefferson City, Missouri; and Bangor, Maine all have narrower pay gaps than average. But the title goes to Rochester, Minnesota as the top place for working women for the second year in a row. Women in that metro earn the highest income in the nation, after deducting housing costs.
If you live in a state capitol, you have an even better chance of equal pay: nearly half of the top 12 metros were around capitals.
The women who live in Tallahassee, Florida’s state capital, will be relieved to know that they enjoy one of smallest pay gaps in the nation, with the average woman in the metro area earning roughly 94% of what the average man does. Florida, overall, had the most metros in the top 51, with 13 cities outperforming the national average. Gainesville, Tampa, Fort Meyers, and Miami all did better than 80%.
But there’s bad news for the women of Utah. Provo-Orem is the worst-performing metro area in the study. Smart Asset’s data shows that the average woman there earns about 42% of what the average man does.
Read the complete article here.