Equal Pay Reduces Poverty for Working Women Across the Country in Every State
A new report from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) on the Economic Impact of Equal Pay finds that if women were paid the same as equally qualified men, poverty for working women would be reduced by more than 40 percent. Closing the gender wage gap would increase working women’s annual average earnings from $41,402 to $48,326, adding $541 billion in wage and salary income to the U.S. economy (2.8 percent of 2019 GDP). Across the country, if working women aged 18 and older were paid the same as comparable men the poverty rate among working women would decrease from 9.5 percent to 5.5 percent. The report shows that New Jersey would see the greatest impact on poverty reduction, with equal pay cutting poverty by almost half (48.4 percent) among working women. Montana (45.9 percent), Wyoming (45.5 percent), Louisiana (44.5 percent), and Hawaii (44.0 percent) would also see the largest impacts of equal pay on reducing poverty. States with higher-than-average poverty rates would also see significant poverty reductions among working women. New Mexico’s poverty rate among working women would decline to 8.4 percent from a national high of 13.9 percent, Mississippi’s would decrease to 8 percent from 13.6 percent, and Louisiana’s would decrease to 7.5 percent from 13.4 percent.