Utah is 33rd in U.S. in wages for women

America has two economies: one for white men, and one for everyone else.

That is the consensus of a new report released by the Institute for Women's Policy Research, which found that women's wages — and those of minority women in particular — continue to lag behind the wages of white men.

The IWPR's "Status of Women in the States: Wide Disparities by Race, Ethnicity and Region" ranked Utah 33rd out of 51 states (including the District of Columbia) in terms of women's earnings. The wage ratio improved from 65.8 percent in 1999 to 70.3 percent in 2002 (the most recent data analyzed in the IWPR report).

"I was happy that we'd gone up a little bit," said Lorna Vogt, director of the Utah Progressive Network, a non-profit coalition of community groups. "It is always good to see progress. But it did also raise the question of whether women are reaching parity, and in this case, sadly, the answer seems to be no."

Vogt said one reason for the improvement was a general lag in the economy. During the same period that women saw a 1.1 percent increase in real wages, real wages for men dipped 5.4 percent.

Women in Utah earned an average of $27,000 annually, the report found, compared to $38,400 for men. Minority women fared worse: Native American and Hispanic women earned less than two-thirds of the wages earned by men, according to the report.

Though education, job training and work experience explain some of the wage gap between men and women, Vogt said women have made advancement in each of those areas. The fact that wages do not reflect that signals another force likely is at work, she said.

"Women have now been in the work force long enough. They have achieved education levels equal to men and have had the time in the workplace," she said. "At this point, it is clear that discrimination continues to play a role."

Nationally, the IWPR report found that women earn 76 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Based on census data, the report also found that women own only about 26 percent of all businesses.

Gender-based pay disparities exist in all states and across all racial and ethnic groups, the report found, despite laws aimed at equalizing pay and ending discrimination.

Although women's earnings generally have grown faster than men's earnings since 1975, the report said women will not achieve pay parity for more than 50 years. The report also said women are more likely to live in poverty.