(Undated) - In few states is the difference between what the average man earns than what a woman makes larger than in Indiana.
The state ranks fifth worst nationally in the margin between what a man makes and what a woman makes.
For every dollar a Hoosier man is paid, his female counterpart earns 72 cents according to a new report from the National Center for Women & Families.
Indiana women earn a median income of $32,221 per year. The yearly median pay for a man is $44,851.
The difference was more exaggerated when considering minority women. Full-time working African-American women are paid just 67 cents for every dollar paid to all men. Latinas made just 55 cents on the dollar.
As a group, full-time working women in Indiana lose approximately $10.6 billion each year due to the wage gap, the study said. If women’s pay were equal to men’s, those women could purchase an additional 2.2 years worth of food, twelve more months or mortgage and utilities, 18 more months of rent, 44 more months of family health insurance, and 3,049 additional gallons of gas.
The study stated nearly 15 million households nationwide are headed by women, with 29.4 percent of them living below the poverty level. In Indiana, that number rises to 31.7 percent.
Nationally, women make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes.
Ohio ranked 29th and Kentucky 25th with women there earning 23 cents less for every man’s dollar.
Vermont and California tied for the closest to equal pay with 84 cent. Wyoming had the largest gap at 64 cents.
The National Center for Women & Families report is available online at http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=issues_work_epd_map.
