Tampa Bay women are among the lowest paid in the nation, study says

Tampa Bay has some of the worst-paying areas in the nation for women, according to a new study.

Driving the news: Financial website Smartest Dollar published an analysis last week of data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Census Bureau to determine the country's best-paying locations for women.

• Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater came in 45 out of 56 large metro areas.

By the numbers: Women working full time in the Tampa Bay area make a median annual wage of $46,447, compared to the national median of $49,263, per 2021 data adjusted for cost of living.

• Meanwhile, the national median wage for men is $60,428. The analysis didn't provide localized data for men.

Zoom in: Lakeland-Winter Haven ranked 91 of 94 midsize areas and 343 of 354 overall, with women's median wage at $39,076.

• North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton ranked 51 of 94 midsize metros, with women making $45,675.
• Homosassa Springs ranked 97 of 204 small metro areas. Women there make $46,325.
• Florida was ranked last out of all 50 states with women's wage median being $41,633.

The big picture: Nationally, women have earned roughly 82% as much as men for the last 20 years, Axios' Ivana Saric reports.

• The gaps are more staggering for Black and Hispanic women, who earned 70 cents and 65 cents, respectively, to every dollar earned by a white man in 2022.

• White women earned 83 cents and Asian women earned 93 cents, according to a recently published Pew Research Center analysis.

Between the lines: No single reason accounts for the lack of progress made in the pay gap over the past two decades, Pew's analysis said.

• Greater numbers of women left the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic. Later research showed that this exodus tended to affect women with less education, who were less likely to have jobs that allowed them to work remotely.
• Women also remain "overrepresented in lower-paying occupations relative to their share of the workforce," the analysis noted.