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Minnesota's Pay-equity Law Paying Off

Published Tuesday, November 19, 2002 in the Star Tribune.

By Jean Hopfensperger

Working women in Minnesota earn 73 cents for every dollar earned by men, a wage gap that narrowed somewhat over the past decade, the state demographer told a group of legislators Monday.

But women who work for state government now earn 97 cents to their male counterparts' dollar, according to state officials who monitor wages.

The reason: Minnesota passed a pay-equity law in the mid-1980s that required state and local governments to review their wage policies and to create an equal-pay-for-equal-work standard.

Minnesota was the first state to do so, and its 200,000 state and local government workers now are reaping the rewards, said Faith Zwemke, pay-equity coordinator for the state.

"There is nowhere in the country with those kinds of numbers," she said. "We've set a precedent for the nation on how to do this. It's absolutely astounding."

The law was implemented without lawsuits and without bureaucracy, she added.

Zwemke was among several speakers Monday at a hearing on "Women, Work and Wages" before the Legislative Commission on the Economic Status of Women. Commission organizers said it was time to see how female workers are faring in Minnesota, which has the highest percentage of working women in the nation.

"The difference between earnings of men and women continues to exist," state demographer Tom Gillaspy told the commission.

There are many possible explanations, speakers said.

They include discrimination, women's choice of occupations, their disproportionate numbers in the nonprofit sector, and the "mommy track" that requires some women to take less demanding, less lucrative jobs so they can focus on family life, speakers said.

Gillaspy said the demographer's office will research the wage gap to learn more precisely why it persists.

The commission also heard from business leaders, including representatives of Medtronic and General Mills, about the role businesses can play in making workplaces family-friendly.

Numbers tell story

According to the 2000 census:

• Minnesota women working full time earn, on the average, $10,600 a year less than men. The median annual earnings for a woman were $28,700, compared with $39,300 for a man.
  
  
• Twenty-one percent of women earn more than $35,000 a year, compared with 45 percent of men. That number gets more lopsided in certain professions. For example, about 39 percent of women working in management or professional jobs earn more than $35,000, compared with 66 percent of men.
  
  
• The female-to-male wage gap was 67 cents to the dollar in 1990, compared with 73 cents to the dollar now.
  
  
• The pay gap was widest in Twin Cities suburbs, northeastern Minnesota and the St. Cloud area. It was narrowest in southwestern Minnesota.

Women tend to be clustered in lower-wage professions, said Bonnie Watkins, a member of a coalition that has monitored pay equity in Minnesota for two decades.

More than half of all women hold jobs in sales, clerical work, service or caregiving, Watkins said. In general, the more an occupation is dominated by women, the less it pays, she said.

But she cited some signs of progress, including changes in workplace culture.

She recalled how, 25 years ago, wages were so low for state clerical workers that many qualified for food stamps. Watkins, a clerical worker herself then, could not be considered for her agency's outstanding achievement awards because clerical workers didn't qualify, she said.

"At the same time, our state employee newspaper ran something like a 'Miss State Capitol Charmer' that usually had clerical workers," she recalled. "You couldn't get any [bonus] money, but you could be Miss Capitol Charmer."

Looking ahead

Watkins urged the commission to push pay-equity legislation for the private sector. Maine recently did that, she said.

A bill requiring companies that contract with the state to have pay-equity standards in their wage structures also should be considered, she said. Talk of reducing the size of state government makes such a measure particularly important, she said.

Watkins said that implementing pay equity in the private sector could be as simple as a company signing a document saying that it had reviewed its wage system and addressed wage inequities. The state could do random audits of companies, she said.

Businesses also can play a greater role in helping women balance work and personal lives, Ron James, president of the Center for Ethical Business Cultures at the University of Minnesota, said.

Offering flexible hours, job sharing, telecommuting, child-care assistance and other supports to women -- and men -- can lead to a stable, more satisfied and productive workforce, James said.

In spite of research showing that it is profitable for companies to offer family-friendly workplaces, most companies don't leap at the opportunity, he conceded. "A lot of businesses are focused on short-term gain," he said. "They're under a lot of pressure to perform."

In an informal discussion after the meeting, Lydia Mallett, chief diversity officer for General Mills, told commission members how her company has tried to improve the status of its female workers. It offers flexible work hours, paid parenting leave, a mentoring program, on-site day care and $5,000 to parents who adopt.

"We went from 17 percent women officers, vice president and above, to 23 percent over five years," Mallett said. "I think that's progress."

Legislators can look for ways to encourage businesses to be more family-friendly, said Rep. Barb Sykora, R-Excelsior, the commission's chairwoman. Especially during this era of budget cuts, it's important to look for new ways to support families, she said.

"We don't have money for things like family leave," Sykora said. "But there may be ways to encourage corporations to do some things -- such as using the tax code. It's less bureaucratic than starting a new program."

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