Here’s How Much Less Women Make In Colorado: Gender Pay Gap

Oct. 20.

It’s the day each year the average woman in Colorado effectively stops getting paid, according to a new report from Business.org highlighting the current gender wage gap between working men and women.

Since men get paid through the end of the year, Oct. 20 also symbolizes the 20 percent pay gap between men and women in our state.

The pay gap between men and women in the United States is nothing new.

Women this year are projected to make only $0.82 for every dollar a man makes, one cent more than they made in 2020, according to the National Women’s Law Center. This gap in earnings translates into $10,157 less per year in median earnings.

That number is even worse for Black women, Latinas and other women of color. Before the pandemic, these groups experienced a larger gap than white women: Black women are paid just 63 cents, and Latinas only 55 cents, for every dollar paid to white men.

The coronavirus pandemic has only made things worse for working women in the United States.

A year ago, women outnumbered men in the U.S. workforce. Yet as the pandemic progressed, women left the workforce in droves. By September, 80 percent of the 1.1 million people who exited the workforce were women. In December, women accounted for all of the 140,000 lost jobs in the United States.

Throughout the pandemic, female workforce participation has dropped to 57 percent — its lowest level since 1988, according to the National Women’s Law Center.

Are states making progress amid the pandemic? Yes, but slowly, according to the Business.org report.

To determine which states are making the most progress in closing the gender wage gap, Business.org used data from a number of sources including the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. States were then ranked based on the difference in earnings between women and men working full time and year-round.

The website then determined each state’s “stop-pay” date, which is the day women technically start working for free based on the pay gap in their state.

When it comes to closing the gender pay gap, Colorado ranks No. 26 in the nation. On average, men make an estimated $60,334 per year while women only make $48,258. This means women make 80 percent of what men make.

While women don’t have a higher average salary than men in any U.S. state, Vermont has the narrowest wage gap — women there earn only 9 percent less than men overall. Vermont is followed by Hawaii and Maryland, respectively.

On the other hand, Wyoming holds the country’s largest gender wage gap. Women there make 35 percent less than men overall.

Read the full report at Business.org.