Women earn 88 percent of men's earnings in Hawaii, among the highest in 2015

December 22, 2016

Women who were full-time wage and salary workers had median usual weekly earnings that were 81.1 percent of men’s earnings in 2015. Women earned 87.9 percent of men’s earnings in Hawaii, which is among the states with the highest percentage of women’s to men’s earnings. The District of Columbia (87.4 percent), Florida (87.4 percent), and Delaware (87.3 percent) followed Hawaii as the states in which women’s earnings as a percentage of men’s were the highest. Wyoming (69.0 percent), North Dakota (74.8 percent), Utah (75.2 percent), and Alabama (75.5 percent) had the lowest ratio of women’s to men’s earnings.

In 2015, women in construction and extraction occupations had median weekly earnings of $704, or 93.7 percent of the median for men in the same occupations ($751), the highest percentage among all major occupational groups. Women in office and administrative support occupations earned $646 per week, or 93.2 percent of the median for men ($693). Women in legal occupations had median weekly earnings of $1,135, or 60.5 percent of the median for men ($1,877).

The earnings comparisons in this report are on a broad level and do not control for many factors that can be significant in explaining earnings differences, such as job skills and responsibilities, work experience, and specialization. These data are from the Current Population Survey. To learn more, see Highlights of women’s earnings in 2015.