Women in Maryland are paid 85 cents for every dollar men earn, an annual pay gap of more than $8,600, a study released Monday showed.
The analysis by the National Partnership for Women & Families, timed for Equal Pay Day on Tuesday and based on U.S. Census Bureau data, looked at pay of full-time, year-round employees in 50 states. Equal Pay Day represents how far into the new year women must work to catch up with what men were paid the previous year.
Maryland has nearly 318,000 households headed by women. The pay gap in the state widens for Latinas and African-American and Asian women, who are paid 47 cents, 69 cents and 82 cents, respectively, for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, according to the analysis.
“The analysis is a sobering reminder of the serious harm the wage gap causes women and families all across the country,” Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership, said Monday. “It is unacceptable that the wage gap has persisted, punishing the country’s women and families for decades.”
The study found wage gaps in every state. Maryland’s pay inequity is less pronounced than the nation’s, where women earn 79 cents on average for every dollar paid to men, the study found.
Maryland lawmakers passed an expansion of the state’s equal pay law on Saturday, with the House of Delegates approving a bill designed to prohibit pay discrimination based on gender or gender identity.
The National Partnership analysis found that if wage gaps in the state were eliminated, full-time female workers could afford to buy food for 1.3 more years, pay for mortgage and utilities for five more months or pay rent for nearly seven more months. The partnership is advocating for Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which it says would close loopholes in the existing Equal Pay Act.
lorraine.mirabella@baltsun.com