What women make vs. men

Whatever you've heard about women choosing occupations that pay less, here are the cold, hard numbers from the government's American Community Survey (published 8/2006 with census date from 2005)for median income (half of people are above this number and half are below it) for women and men by occupation. Hard to think about this...a woman in most occupations makes an average of $10,000 less every year of her life than a man in the same occupation. For a few occupations the gap is less, but for some--like legal, for instance, where the median male's income is more than 200% of the female's, or sales where it's 150% of a woman's--the difference is dramatic. Now think about the many single working women in single-below-the-median-income households, and we're talkin' painful.

What could you do with $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 or more a year?

[The second and fourth columns are "90% plus or minus confidence levels" - the last one is the percentage of women's income compared to men's.]


And if you want to check out how it is for women in the state you live in, here's a map.


In case you can't read these charts (sorry, that's as big as I could get the graphics) or want more information about poverty rates, etc., here's the full report.