Women earn 83 cents for every $1 men earn in L.A. city government
For every dollar earned by men working in Los Angeles city government, female workers earn 83 cents, according to an infographic “snapshot” released Thursday by City Controller Ron Galperin.
The numbers, highlighted in honor of Women’s History Month, underscore that local government isn’t immune to the gender gap in wages that pervades other fields. Across the United States, that pay gap has narrowed but not closed, according to a Pew Research Center analysis released late last year.
“What we found confirms what many of us already know -- while we have made great strides to close the wage gap, there is still much more work ahead of us to achieve true parity,” Galperin said in an email.
Only six of 41 general managers in the city are women, the data show. (The figures exclude the Department of Water and Power, where Marcie Edwards recently took the helm as the first female general manager to lead the agency.) The infographic also points out that only one of the 15 elected officials on the Los Angeles City Council -- District 6’s Councilwoman Nury Martinez -- is a woman.
Men and women tend to fill different jobs in the city, the infographic showed: While women make up 47% of City Hall workers, they make up only 19% of its police officers, 3% of its construction workers, 2% of its firefighters, and none of the “port pilots” pulling ships into port, according to the controller’s figures.
But women make up the bulk of its administrative and library workers -- 80% and 71% respectively. Among city departments, the library, the controller and the city administrative officer have the highest share of female workers, while contract administration, street services and the Fire Department have the lowest, according to the infographic.
The numbers were drawn from Control Panel L.A., an online portal where Angelenos can find more detailed information about the gender breakdown and salaries in city departments.
Twitter: @latimesemily
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