Women's Wages Outpaced Men's During Recession

Article here. Excerpt:

'The wages of the typical woman who had a job during the worst recession in decades rose faster than those of the typical man, new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show.

Over the past two years, the wages of the median woman -- at the statistical middle -- rose 3.2% when adjusted for inflation. Wages of the median man rose 2%. Minority men were particularly hard hit, while minority women and highly educated women of all races did better.

The typical full-time female worker earned $657 a week in the third quarter, the BLS said. The typical man earned $812 a week. Men are more likely to be unemployed, though: The male jobless rate is 11%; for women, it's 8.4%

Economists cautioned that the wage numbers and the increases don't reflect the large numbers of workers who aren't working at all.

There were about 8.2 million fewer full-time wage and salary workers in the third quarter than two years ago; the data don't include part-time or self-employed workers. Low-wage workers are hit disproportionally during recessions, and their absence from the tally could cause median wages to rise even if the typical worker isn't getting a raise.

"This is a situation where everyone's losing but men are losing more, and that's not really a victory for women," said Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning Washington, D.C., think tank.'