Census data recently analyzed by the Pew Research Center show that a quarter of all moms now bring home more money than their male counterparts. According to an NBC News article "Overall,
women -- including those who are unmarried -- are now the leading or
solo breadwinners in 40 percent of U.S. households, compared with just
11 percent in 1960.That’s both good news and bad news, depending on
which end of the scale you examine. At the top level, educated women
are catching up with men in the workforce. But at the bottom rungs,
there are more single mothers than ever and most of them are living near
the poverty line."While Pew was able to get special runs done for them in analyzing the American Communities Survey (ACS) data from the Census Bureau, we unfortunately don't have that type of access. However there are some interesting data in the ACS that tells us about the earning power of local males and females.
The graph below shows the cumulative percentages of males and females in Herkimer and Oneida Counties who worked full time in the past 12 months by how much they earned. It is set up to show the percentage that earn less than several benchmark amounts.
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So for example, looking at the graph you can see that 84% of all Herkimer County females who worked full time in the past year earned less than $50,000 annually; in comparison, only 66.3% of Herkimer County males earned $50,000. What this shows, then, is that females in Herkimer County are more likely to earn lower salaries than males - or more specifically more of them are paid at a lower rate than their male counterparts. Another way to think of that same data is to say that only 16% of Herkimer County females make MORE than $50,000, versus 34% of Herkimer County males. So which group would you rather be a part of ?
Here's the data the above chart comes from.
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