Nevada struggles to close gender pay gap, study finds

Women in Nevada earn an average of 81 cents for every dollar made by men, according to an analysis published this week by the American Association of University Women.

The data was released to coincide with Equal Pay Day on Tuesday, which marks how far into the new year women have to keep working on average to match what men earned in 2017. Nevada ranks 22nd in the country, with Utah taking last place — women there earn, on average, 70 cents on the dollar compared with their male counterparts.

“It’s only decreased a nickel in the past 20 years,” association CEO Kim Churches said of the pay gap. “That type of bottleneck and lack of progress means that we’re on the current trajectory for more than 100 years.”

Experts said the gap was shrinking more slowly than it once was and was getting worse for minority women, bottoming out among Latinas at 54 cents for every man’s dollar. Latinas working fulltime in 2017 won’t have made what white men made until Nov. 1 of this year, said Noreen Farrell of the California-based group Equal Rights Advocates. California has one of the lowest pay gaps in the country, at 88 cents for each dollar a man makes.

“The average pay gap doesn’t tell the story of all women in this country,” Farrell said. “The gender wage gap is far worse for women of color, disabled women, mothers, lesbians and workers from the trans and gender-nonconforming community, which experiences poverty at four times the rate of the general population.”

The group says the pay gap is “math, not myth,” based on federal census and labor data. The disparity is present across nearly all professions, and averages 80 cents on the dollar for full-time, yearround workers.

Alabama and Mississippi are the only