How well does your state treat women workers?
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research gave only one place, Washington, D.C., an “A” grade for employment and earnings. No state in the U.S. received an A grade in those two categories. D.C. received an “A” grade overall in 2018, while Maryland and Massachusetts both a “B+” on a national score card that graded all 50 states on women’s economic opportunities.
IWPR ranked states based on two categories: employment and earnings, and poverty and opportunity.
However, there was only one “A” grade in the whole bunch: Washington, D.C. scored an “A” in the employment and earnings category. Women there make a median annual salary of $66,000, many are in managerial positions, and 67% of women are in the workforce.
See: 6 ways men and women differ when it comes to money
To determine the grades for the employment and earnings category, IWPR looked at women’s median full-time salaries, the wage gap between men and women, and how likely women were to be in the workforce and in professional or managerial jobs.
Mississippi, West Virginia and Idaho fared the worst for women on the employment and earnings index — they all received an “F.” South Dakota saw the greatest improvement among all the states for employment, jumping to a “C+” in 2018 from a “D” in 2015.
The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that conducts research to advance women conducts a “Poverty & Opportunity Index” — which is based on the percentage of women who live in poverty, have a college education, have health insurance, and other factors.
Louisiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and Arkansas ranked lowest. They all earned a “D-,” except for Mississippi, which got an “F.” Much of the U.S. has remained unchanged in women’s economic status since the IWPR’s last scorecard in 2015, the report found.
Most states’ grades for the IWPR index remained the same, signaling stagnant progress. Meanwhile, eleven states received a lower grade on the Employment & Earnings Index and 16 states received a lower grade on the Poverty & Opportunity Index.
Also see: Why 1,000 economists are calling for an end to misogyny in economics
Earnings aren’t growing, even though more Americans are investing in a college education, said Julie Anderson, senior research associate at IWPR. But there’s one factor that remains a challenge: women leave the workforce, and not just to take care of their children.
Women are the primary care givers to aging parents and family members, and yet paid family or medical leave is not required in the U.S. New York, California, New Jersey and Rhode Island are the only states that require paid family leave.
“Without federal legislation guaranteeing paid sick days and paid family and medical leave, people cannot sustain themselves,” Anderson told MarketWatch. “They can’t be an employee and care giver — something has to give.”
Other findings from the report include:
• D.C. has the highest share of women in the labor force (67.4%) compared to West Virginia, which had the lowest (50.2%).
• California has the narrowest gender wage gap: women earn 90% of what men earn in that state, while Louisiana has the widest: women earn 69 cents on the dollar of what men earn.
• Almost all non-elderly women have health insurance in Massachusetts (97.5%) compared to the state with the lowest rate, Texas (78.1%). Every state saw an increase in women with health insurance between 2015 and 2018, with New Mexico and West Virginia seeing the greatest leap with 15 percentage points.
• D.C. had the greatest share of women-owned businesses (43%), compared to South Dakota with the lowest (29%). Georgia is the second highest (41%).
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