PALMDALE – City officials announced Monday (Apr. 7) that Palmdale is among the top 10 places with the fastest decreasing gender pay gaps.
In its news release, Palmdale officials noted the city as ninth in its inclusion among cities where the gap is improving, that is, “where the gender pay gap is decreasing the fastest.”
Palmdale also noted its comparative significance among those cities who are answering President Obama’s criticism in his 2014 State of the Union Address, calling the nation’s discrepancy in gender pay “an embarrassment.”
“Palmdale is a very open, inclusive and diversified place,” Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford said in the city’s announcement. “Equality and fairness are part of our core values as both an organization and as a community.”
The 2007 median male income in Palmdale was 152.69 percent of the female median income. By 2012, that figure had decreased by 25.62 percent to 127.08 percent, according to the survey. The 2012 median male and female incomes in Palmdale were $45,951 and $36,160, respectively.
“Palmdale’s gender pay gap has been decreasing quickly compared to the rest of the nation,” NerdWallet analyst Sreekar Jasthi was quoted as saying in the release. “There is still progress to be made, but the city is moving in the right direction.”
Other places making rapid strides in decreasing the gender pay gap include Corona, Calif; Beaumont, Texas; and Murfreesboro, Tenn.
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Antelope Valley Press staff writer Jim Skeen noted that as Palmdale’s pay gap shrank, Lancaster’s widened, reporting, “Out of the 283 cities with a population of over 100,000 studied by NerdWallet, Lancater ranked 219 for growth in pay inequality.”
Skeen said that in 2007, the median income for men in Lancaster was $40,018 while for women it was $33,100. Men made 120.9 percent more than women that year. And in 2012, the median income was $43,863 for men and $34,780 for women, when men made 126.08 percent more that year.
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However, some public officials in California are not nearly as satisfied with Palmdale’s perceived progress.
Lori Abbott, reporter for Public News Service, writes that California women must work almost 15 months to earn what a man does in just 12.
Abbot reports Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, is taking a stand for female-headed households, a demograhic that tends to be among the poorest and most dependent on public assistance.
“She’s heading up a new committee to look at those issues and ask the tough questions,” Abbot said in her report, noting the Assemblywoman’s claim that today’s workforce is made up of “breadwinner moms.”
“What does this mean for women’s roles in society and the family?” Gonzalez asked. “What can be done to better promote self sufficiency of female-headed households? What unique health problems and issues are raised by women in the workforce, and what can be done to adapt?”
Gonzalez promises to explore these challenges, while seeking state policy solutions that will allow “breadwinner moms to earn a few sick days so that they can take their kids to the doctor.”
Abbot writes that California’s “glass ceiling” actually is a little better than that of the rest of the nation.
“Women here make 84 cents for every $1 a man makes,” according to her article. “According to the White House, nationwide full-time working women earn 77 percent of what their male counterparts earn.”
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“Equal Pay Day,” which was marked Tuesday (Apr. 8), is part of an ongoing national campaign to increase awareness about pay inequality for working women.
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