Women working full time in Oklahoma earn 73 cents for every dollar a man working full-time does.
That amounts to $6.2 billion a year.
"If we closed the wage gap in Oklahoma, working women could afford more than 95 more weeks of food for their family, 10 more months of mortgage and utility payments and nearly 16 more months of rent," said Rachel Lyons with the National Partnership for Women and Families.
Oklahoma is tied with Alabama and Idaho for the nation’s sixth-largest pay gap. Nationally, women are paid 79 cents for every dollar paid to men.
Oklahoma's pay gap is even larger for non-white women.
"African-American women in Oklahoma are paid 63 cents on the dollar. Latinas are paid 51 cents, and Asian women are paid 65 cents," Lyons said.
The partnership’s analysis of federal census and labor statistics found the gaps, which are based on median annual salaries, exist in all of Oklahoma’s five congressional districts.
Many people think the gender pay gap is due to women’s career choices. But women are paid less across all industries, and Lyons said more education doesn't solve the problem.
"In health care and social services, which employs the most people in the country, women are just paid 71 cents on the dollar," Lyons said. "Women with master's degrees are paid 72 cents for every dollar that's paid to a man with a master's degree, but, even worse, women with doctoral degrees are paid less than men with master's degrees," Lyons said.
The smallest pay gap in the U.S. is in Washington, D.C., where women make 90 cents for every dollar men do. Louisiana has the nation’s largest discrepancy, where women are paid 65 cents on the dollar.
