Understanding Wyoming's Woeful Wage Gap

• Jurisdiction: Wyoming,United States
• Citation: Vol. 28 No. 6 Pg. 11
• Publication year: 2005
• Pages: 11
• Year: 2005
• topic: Employment Law

Wyoming Bar Journal 2005.

Vol. 28, No. 6 #11 (December 2005). Understanding Wyoming's Woeful Wage Gap

WYOMING LAWYER
December 2005/Vol. XXVIII, No. 6

Understanding Wyoming's Woeful Wage Gap

By Cynthia M. Lummis

The first woman in the world to vote while exercising full voting rights with men was Louisa Swain, who cast her historic ballot in Laramie, Wyoming on September 6, 1870 Both Mrs. Swain and the Territory of Wyoming made history that day, Wyoming having granted women equal voting rights fully fifty years before the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution afforded all American women the same privilege. Yet, 135 years after Wyoming earned the title 'The Equality State,' women in Wyoming earn only 64.4 cents for every dollar earned by men for full-time year-round work - the worst gap in pay between men and women of any state in the nation, according to a University of Wyoming study

Even within the Intermountain Region, where the wage gap is wider than in most regions, Wyoming is dead last.

A college education creates quantifiable wage-earning opportunities. If, then, knowledge is power, the current trend of women in college is encouraging. Women and men in Wyoming have very similar education levels. Census 2000 shows that 30.8% of Wyoming women have a high school or equivalent degree, 9% have associate degrees, 15.1% have bachelor degrees, and 4.4% have master degrees. In comparison, 31.2% of men have a high school or equivalent...