The Institute for Women’s Policy Research constructed a dataset from the 2002 through 2004 American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Files (ACS) for people residing in the state of Maryland.

Although the wage gap, measured by conventional methods, has narrowed in the last several decades, with women who work full-time full-year now earning 77 percent of what men earn (compared with 59 cents on the male dollar 40 years ago), its sweeping effects are largely unacknowledged because its measurement is limited to a single year and restricted to only a portion of the workforce. When accumulated over many years for all men and women workers, the losses to women and their families due to the wage gap are large and can be devastating.

Equal Pay for Working Families: National and State Data on the Pay Gap and Its Costs