Local View of the Gender Wage Gap: Herkimer County Earnings By Sex and Occupation

A lot has been reported recently on the wage gap between what men and women earn for similar work. CBS News, for example, reports that nationally women make 78 cents for every dollar that men make for the same job.

Below are some tables that compare the median earnings of men and women who work similar jobs and live in Herkimer County. These tables do not take into account the amount of work experience, schooling, or a host of other factors that could explain some of the differences. However, they are for identical occupational titles and categories. Click the table to enlarge it.

HERKIMER COUNTY COMPARATIVE MEDIAN EARNINGS

BY SEX AND OCCUPATION

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Top 5 Annual Wage Earning Jobs By Occupational Category in the Mohawk Valley

One more piece from the New York State Department of Labor wage data link - the top 5 wage earning jobs by occupational category. The table below lists 22 occupational groupings and the top 5 wage earning job titles based on their mean annual income. In a couple cases less than 5 job titles exists so only those that were provided are listed, in order of earnings. And don't forget - the "Mohawk Valley" consists of 6 counties: Herkimer, Oneida, Fulton, Montgomery, Otsego and Schoharie.

Part 1: Management; Business and Financial; Computer and Mathematical;

and Life, Physical and Social Science Occupations

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Part 2: Community and Social Services; Legal; Education, Training and Library;

Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports and Media; Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Assistants; and Healthcare Support Occupations

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Part 3: Protective Services; Food Preparation and Serving; 

Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance; Personal Care and Service;

and Sales and Related Occupations

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Part 4: Office and Administrative Support; Farming, Fishing and Forestry; 

Construction and Extraction; Installation, Maintenance and Repair; Production;

and Transportation and Material Moving Occupations

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Previous 12 Month Earnings of Males and Females in Herkimer and Oneida Counties

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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You can visit the Census Bureau's American Fact Finder to explore other income related data broken down by gender or race !