How does your salary measure up to the typical worker in the U.S.? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median wage for U.S. employees, based on figures from the first quarter of 2019, is $47,060 per year — a 2.7 percent increase from the same period in 2018.
Lots of factors affect salary levels, including the type of job, the location, the employee’s education and experience, and the employee’s ethnicity. The gender pay gap (the ratio of female-to-male average or median earnings, typically in the range of 78 percent to 85 percent) also remains an issue. According to Pew Research Center, women earned 85 percent of what men earned in 2018. In other words, women would need to work an additional 39 days to earn the same as men in 2018.
The latest official figures from the U.S. Census Bureau reveal that in 2017, the median earnings for female full-time, year-round workers in the U.S. were $41,453 per year. Of course, that’s a median figure for the entire country. When you break it down by state, according to figures in the 2017 American Community Survey, the median earnings vary widely.
Here are the median earnings for women by state (including Washington, D.C.) from lowest to highest, and how those figures compare to men’s earnings in each state.