A lot of Florida Man stories went viral last week because of an internet challenge, but few Florida Woman headlines.
Here's one that should be trending: Florida women working full-time make about $5,515 a year less than men, a new report from the National Partnership for Women & Families. That's 85 cents for every dollar a man makes, according to an analysis from the Sun Sentinel.
The gap varies by race and ethnicity. Latina and Black women are paid about $20,000 less a year than white, non-Hispanic men, the biggest gap out of any group, according to the report.
If the annual gender wage gap were eliminated, a working woman in Florida would have enough money, on average, to pay for more than nine months of child care, close to four months of health insurance premiums and almost a year of college tuition and fees.
Overall in the U.S., women are paid 80 cents for every dollar paid to men, with wider gaps for women of color. The National Partnership for Women & Families blames a number of factors for this persistent disparity, including "gender and racial discrimination, workplace harassment, job segregation and a lack of workplace policies that support family caregiving, which is still most often performed by women."
The fact that full-time workers in the U.S. lose a combined total of almost $900 billion every year simply by being women should be as shocking as the headline, "Florida man arrested for flinging gator into Wendy's drive-thru."