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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Equal Pay for Wyoming Women Would Cut Poverty Rate in Half

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Monday, May 15, 2017   

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – How many moms asked for equal pay for Mother's Day?

Women are now the sole or co-breadwinner in half of American families with young children, and if they were paid the same as comparable male workers, 26 million children across the U.S. would benefit, according to new analysis by the Institute for Women's Policy Research.

Study director Jessica Milli, a senior research associate at the institute, stresses closing the gender wage gap is much more than a women's issue.

"The additional income that equal pay would add to family incomes would reduce the poverty rate among children by nearly half, and so that was also a really striking finding from our analysis," she states.

The report found Wyoming's poverty rate would drop from 5.8 percent to just over 2 percent.

Milli says the pay gap isn't always a result of unfair bosses – it's partly because more women work in jobs that have traditionally paid less.

But Milli contends new policies, such as prohibiting employers from asking applicants for their salary histories, would prevent lower earnings from following women into new jobs.

Researchers compared women and men of the same age, education levels and working the same number of hours.

In Wyoming, women would see a bump in pay of more than $9,000 a year if paid the same as men.

Milli notes equal pay would also boost states' economies.

"Equal pay would add more than $500 billion in wage and salary income to the national economy, which is about 2.8 percent of GDP in 2016," she states.

The pay gap hits women of color especially hard. According to the National Women's Law Center, black women earn 63 cents for every dollar a white man makes, which translates to a loss of more than $840,000 over a 40-year career.

On average, a woman would have to work 10 years longer than a man to close the gap.






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