Wyoming continues to have the worst gender pay gap in the country, and the gulf is widening. According to a new report released by the National Partnership for Women and Families. Wyoming women made only 64 cents for every dollar that men in the state made. That amounts to an annual wage gap of over $18,000 dollars.
Sarah Fleisch-Sink is a policy analyst with the group. She says as women are increasingly becoming the primary breadwinners, that’s money that's not available for food, rent and gas. In the rest of the country the wage gap is narrowing, but not Wyoming. “Last year, women in Wyoming were paid 67 cents for every dollar,” she says. “So the gap has gotten worse, I suppose you’d say, by several cents.”
Fleisch-Sink says that states that rely on manufacturing tend to have the worst wage gaps, but that nowhere is the gap closing fast enough. The gap is present regardless of education or occupation, which Fleisch-Sink says leaves gender discrimination as the only explanation.
