1. ECONOMIC CURRENT GENDER STATUS

2. NATIONAL TRENDS  18 percent of women aged 18 and older are poor, compared with 14 percent of comparable men.  27 percent of African American women and 28 percent of Hispanic women aged 18 and older live at or below the federal poverty line, compared with 17 percent of white women.  Women with some college education or an associate’s degree have median annual earnings that are $10,500 less than those of men with only a high school diploma or the equivalent. (IWPR, 2013)  Unemployment for men in 2011 was at 9.3 percent compared to 8.3 percent for women, who now make up half of the U.S. work force. (AP, 2011)

3. “We call today Equal Pay Day, a day to remember that women still only get paid 77 cents for every dollar their male counterparts make and to demand equality in the workplace. Over the course of their working lives, women make between $400,000 and $2 million less than they would if they were paid fairly.” The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (2014) APRIL 8, 2014

4. ECONOMIC SITUATION IN WEST VIRGINIA

5. GENDER WAGE GAP National 21 percent West Virginia 31 percent

6. 538 DATA: PAY GAP BY STATE (CHALABI, 2014)

8.  In 2008, the General Social Survey found:  27% of gay men and lesbians had experienced workplace harassment in the last five years  7% had lost a job because of their sexual orientation  Census data indicates:  Men in same-sex relationships earn on average $31,301 each year.  Men married to different sex partners earn on average $37,641 each year.  Men with same-sex partners earn lower wages despite the fact that they are more likely to have a college degree than men married to different-sex partners  Women in same-sex relationships earn less than married men as well as men in same-sex couples.  Women in same-sex couples in West Virginia earn an average of $26,649, which is more than married women, whose earnings average $20,078.  In 2010, the largest survey of transgender people to date found:  78% of respondents reported having experienced harassment or mistreatment at work  47% reported having been discriminated against in hiring, promotion, or job retention because of their gender identity  There are approximately 25,500 LGBT workers living in West Virginia.  A 2009 study suggested that the wage gap for gay men is smaller in states that implement nondiscrimination laws, suggesting that such laws reduce discrimination against LGBT people.  West Virginia does not have a statewide law t hat prohibits discriminati on based on sexual ori entation or gender ide ntity in employment. (Mallory, Liebowitz, & Hasenbush, 2013) STATUS OF LGBT WORKFORCE IN WV

9. EDUCATION EMPLOYMENT

10. EXPLAINING THIS DICHOTOMY National Academy of Sciences study:  Researchers conducted an experiment asking 191 volunteers to “hire” someone to complete a math-related task.  When presented with no information other than the applicant’s appearance, both men and women were twice as likely to hire a male applicant over a female applicant.  This discrimination persisted even after the applicants reported how well they’d done on the math task.  When given full information on the applicants’ past math performance, discrimination fell by about 9 percentage points, but still remained "substantial.”

11. “ The gender gap in hiring decisions is due to a systematic underestimation of the performance of women compared to men.” “Employers biased against women are less likely to take into account the fact that men, on average, boast more than women about their future performance, leading to suboptimal hiring choices that remain biased in favor of men,” the researchers said (Neuhauser, 2014).