Today is Equal Pay Day

If you've noticed some of your co-workers wearing red today it could be their way of marking Equal Pay Day. The day is organized by the National Committee on Pay Equity as a way of drawing attention to the gender wage gap.

A state by state analysis of U.S.Census Bureau figures released by the National Partnership for Women & Families shows that a woman employed full time, year round in Massachusetts is typically paid 82 cents for every dollar paid to a man. That works out to a difference of a little more than $11,000 a year. If the wage gap were closed, the organization calculates that a working woman would be able to afford 83 more weeks of food for her family, or more than 9 additional months of child care each year. The group found wage gaps to be even wider for black women and Latinas.

The study also shows that the wage gap exists in all 50 states and District of Columbia.  It's certainly nothing to brag about, but Massachusetts has the 14th-smallest cents-on- the-dollar gap in the nation. New York, California and Florida have the smallest gender wage gaps, with the widest found in Louisiana, Utah, West Virginia & Montana.