This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
There are only three states that have a bigger pay gaps between men and women than Utah.
On average, Utah women who work full time made 70 cents on the dollar compared with Utah men in 2012. That is about 8 cents per dollar worse than the national average, according to new estimates in the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Only in Wyoming, Louisiana and West Virginia do women do worse.
Those facts should make Utah women particularly interested in what's being done in Washington — and just as important, what's not being done — to shrink the gap.
President Barack Obama signed directives this week to make it easier for employees of companies hired by the federal government to learn how their pay compares to what their co-workers make.
He also directed the Labor Department to write rules requiring federal contractors to provide compensation data by race and gender.
But what the president can do is limited — mostly by Republican roadblocks preventing any action by Congress. The Democratic-majority U.S. Senate is considering more far-reaching legislation to make it easier for workers to sue any company for paying women less because of their gender.
In signing the directives affecting only federal contractors, Obama rightly blamed Republican inaction for continuing wage inequality.
The GOP arguments against the legislation are not supported by evidence. They predict that making it easier to sue for gender wage discrimination would somehow harm merit pay, allow unlimited damage claims in lawsuits against employers, and hinder people from accepting lower pay in exchange for more flexible work hours.
But when employers start from a foundation based on equal pay for equal work, other concerns work themselves out.
Utah's fourth-worst-in-the-nation wage gap hurts families and the state's economy. The Utah gap is 44 percent higher than the national gap of $10,061 per year. That translates into a lot of lost earning power; lower incomes, especially for families headed by women; and more women and children in poverty.
Utah has the largest gap of any state, by far, between the percentage of women who earn bachelor's degrees and the percentage of men with college degrees. And higher education translates into higher salaries.
Utah women should support efforts in Washington to equalize earning power and demand that leaders in their own state do more for fairness.