Wyoming has nation's highest difference in pay between sexes

CASPER — In 2017, Wyoming made headlines for all the wrong reasons. “Bad news, Wyoming women,” began the January 2017 article in Forbes. “Your state has the worst gender pay gap out of all 50.” 

The story, to anyone who’d been in Wyoming for any amount of time, was old news: Wyoming has had a long-standing reputation for paying women less than men. 

The state Legislature first took the initiative to study the issue in 2003 after another article — with similar findings — noted the state’s disproportionate pay scales. More than a decade after first acknowledging the problem, the Wyoming Legislature might be taking action on the issue, following the release of the latest, most accurate report on the issue conducted in Wyoming to date. 

The report shows women across the state — on average — earn just 68 percent of what men make. Women in Wyoming have consistently been paid less than men, with the gap between both men and women widening over the past several years. 

In 2014, women earned just 69 cents for every dollar a man made in Wyoming; in 2017, that rate had fallen to 64 cents per dollar. 

In the winter of 2017, Gov. Matt Mead signed legislation to conduct a study on the issue sponsored by two women lawmakers — Rep. Cathy Connolly, D-Laramie, and Rep. Marti Halverson, R-Etna — who were on opposite sides of a debate over why women have consistently earned less than men. 

Halverson believed the disparity was largely

attributable to career choice and the high wages of the male-dominated energy industry, while Connolly, a professor of gender studies at the University of Wyoming, argued the state’s persistent pay gap is a result of discrimination. 

On Thursday, that study was released to the public, confirming in indisputable terms what the nation has known for years: women in Wyoming make less money — proportionally — than anywhere else in the nation. In the most comprehensive review of state data to date, the 78-page report shows that no matter which way you slice the issue — whether by industry, level of education, age or location — women were consistently paid at lower rates than their male counterparts. 

“We really haven’t gotten better over the last 15 years we have paid attention to it,” said Connolly. “What it does is it looks at industry, occupation, educational attainment firm size… and across all those variables, you see the wage gap, over and over again. We have to do something about it. We can, we should, we must. If we’re going to make the argument we want to be a forward-looking state, we don’t want that phrase ‘Wyoming: Worst for women’ coming out in Forbes again.” 

THE STUDY 

The 2003 report — conducted by the University of Wyoming — found several factors, including time spent at work, differences in education, certain industries dominated by one gender over another and family were the primary reasons for the wage gap. 

Many of the results seen then were replicated in this latest report, the first review of its type conducted by the state. Generated by the state Department of Workforce Services, the report draws on myriad data, using its own records as well as those from the state Department of Health, various state licensing boards, the US Census Bureau, the state Community College Commission, the Department of Education and the State office to paint the most accurate picture of the state’s workforce ever made. 

The wage gap varies depending on the metric used, widening or narrowing based on the industry worked, education level, experience, age, hours worked or even number of children a person has. 

For example, while women across the board made more than 30 percent less than men, women with a bachelor’s degree made just 5 percent less. While women do make more money than men in five occupational categories — female kindergarten teachers, for example, make 14 cents more than a man does on every dollar he earns — men earn more than women in 76 out of 228 occupations surveyed, including physician assistants, accountants and auditors, and management. 

Among year-round, full-time workers, women earned $0.68 for every dollar a man earned — the second-largest gap in the nation, ahead of only Louisiana. 

Including women employed for two consecutive quarters only, women earned $0.74 for every dollar. Counties where mining made up most of the jobs had the highest wage gaps, due to the male-dominated nature of the industry’s highest-paying jobs. The least-populated counties — where ranching and agriculture is king — had the smallest gaps.

In Wyoming’s most-populated counties — Laramie and Natrona — the wage gap was 20 cents and 18 cents, respectively. 

While certain demographic differences were attributable to understanding more than half of the wage gap, approximately 13 cents of the wage gap could not be attributed to anything in particular, according to research from the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services. 

Studies conducted in other states, Connolly said, typically only found 5 cents unaccountable, showing, according to Connolly, that much of the pay disparity in Wyoming is based on plain old discrimination. 

“It’s sobering — it’s honestly sobering,” Connolly said. “When they talk about the desegregation of the wage gap and they could identify half of it, but not the other half, what they didn’t say is that elsewhere in the nation, only about a nickel is unexplained — we have three times that. That’s where you see discrimination, that’s where you see underpayment and undervaluing… that’s greatly disappointing.” 

What are the solutions? The gender pay gap has been a persistent problem nationally as well. 

According to Pew Research data from April, women last year earned 82 percent of what men made on average. 

But that gap is considerably more narrow than Wyoming’s. Women in the Equality State have earned anywhere between 60 percent and 68 percent of their male counterparts depending on the year. 

At the state level, lawmakers have tried legislation to address the problem where they can, from increased penalties for violating equal pay laws — like those in states such as Connecticut, Oregon and New Jersey — prohibiting retaliation for discussing pay with coworkers, like 12 states have already done, or measures like prohibiting employers from asking applicants their prior pay history or reducing exemptions from equal pay laws, like Illinois and Nebraska does. 

In its report, the Department of Workforce Services outlined several solutions for solving the pay gap problem, suggesting similar types of legislation, introducing training for women to negotiate better salaries and offering pay equity training and certification for employers. 

The report also suggests a number of voluntary employer changes as well, including sharing pay ranges for the position with applicants or sharing how pay is calculated with employees.

In the coming months, Connolly and Halverson, who is a member of the Labor Committee, are expected to sponsor a number of bills to address the issue, which are expected to be introduced at the committee level before the start of session this winter. 

“We’re committed to it; now we have the evidence, and now it’s time to go to work,” said Connolly.