Employment and EarningsAdministrator2020-12-09T18:08:37-05:00

Trends in Employment and Earnings

Women’s status in the area of employment and earnings has improved on two indicators since the publication of IWPR’s last national report on the status of women, the 2004 Status of Women in the States, and remained unchanged or declined on two others. Women’s median annual earnings for full-time, year-round work in 2013 ($39,157) were nearly identical to their earnings for similar work in 2002 ($39,108 when adjusted to 2013 dollars). The gender earnings ratio improved during this time from 76.6 to 78.3 percent, narrowing the gender wage gap by 1.7 percentage points, and the share of women working in professional or managerial occupations grew from 33.2 to 39.9 percent. Women’s labor force participation rate, however, declined from 59.6 in 2002 to 57.0 percent in 2014.

BestWorst
1. District of Columbia51. Mississippi
2. Maryland50. West Virginia
3. Massachusetts49. Idaho
4. Connecticut48. Louisiana
5. New York47. Alabama
703, 2014

Women Gained Over Half of the Jobs Added in February; Men Have Regained 82 Percent of Jobs Lost in the Recession

According to an Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) analysis of the March employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), women gained 99,000 jobs in February, while men gained 76,000 for a net increase of 175,000 jobs in February. As of February, men have regained 82 percent (4.9 million) of the jobs they lost during the recession, whereas women hold 17 percent more jobs on payrolls (68.0 million) than at their previous employment peak in March 2008 (67.6 million), more than recovering all the jobs they lost in the downturn.