Women in Minnesota earn far less than their male counterparts even though they were the primary breadwinners in a majority of households during the recession years, according to a new study of women’s well being in the state.
According to the study released Tuesday by the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, women earn only 80 cents to every dollar a man makes in the state even though they have the same training. The wage disparity is even greater for women with advanced degrees.
Foundation President Lee Roper-Batker told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that the disparity makes things worse for families because they rely more on women now than men as the lead earners.
“Now when women are shortchanged in terms of their wages,” Roper-Batker said, “it hurts not only them, it hurts their entire families and their communities.”
The Star Tribune cited several examples of salary disparities contained in the study. In education jobs, the average salary was $54,648 for a male but only $45,527 for a woman.
In executive positions with equivalent training and degrees, the salary difference was nearly $20,000. In the medical field, the divide was even larger.
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