Women’s Pay 75% of Men’s, Study Finds

American working women earn only about three-fourths as much as men, and they are frustrated by poor pay and benefits and problems balancing work and family, a new Labor Department survey said Friday.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich released results of the “Working Women Count” survey, in which thousands of women expressed opinions about juggling job and family responsibilities.

The scientific telephone survey of 1,200 women also took into account the comments of 250,000 women who answered questionnaires distributed through their jobs, churches, clubs and other organizations.

Both the scientific survey and the comments gleaned from questionnaires found frustration with pay and benefits.

Women earned an average of $7.15 an hour in 1993, about 79.8% of male workers’ average wage, the survey showed. Women’s weekly earnings were only 76.8% of men’s and annual earnings in 1992--the most recent year this statistic was available--were $21,440, or 70.6% of what the average man earned.

“Working women tell us . . . they are not getting the pay and benefits commensurate with the work they do, the level of responsibility they hold or the societal contribution they make,” the report said.

Forty-nine percent of respondents in the scientific survey and 55% of questionnaire respondents said they are not paid what they are worth.

Stress was the most-mentioned problem, cited by 60% of the respondents. Nearly three-quarters of women in their 40s who hold professional and management jobs listed it as their top problem, as did more than two-thirds of single working mothers.

Most women said it was getting tougher to balance work and family, and said that “problems with child care are deep and pervasive, affecting families across the economic spectrum,” the report said.