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Places Where Women Make The Most Money

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Women make up 49.3% of all U.S. workers, and 41.4% of mothers are the main breadwinners of their household.   So where do women make the highest salaries? NerdWallet crunched the numbers to find the metro areas where women are bringing home the bacon.  Our analysis was featured in Forbes.

Key findings:

  • Many of the metro areas on this list are cities with a high cost of living. Although women may be making more in these cities, they are likely spending more as well.
  • The Northeast and California dominate this list–90% of the top ten are in these two regions.
  • Silicon Valley takes the top spot this year, likely due to the tech boom and influx of highly educated tech workers to the area.

Metro Areas Where Women Make The Most Money

Rank Metro Area Median earnings for female year-round, full-time workers Median earnings for male year-round, full-time workers Women's earnings as a percentage of men's earnings
1 San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA $56,030 $75,577 74.14%
2 Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV $55,518 $69,050 80.40%
3 San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA $54,568 $65,035 83.91%
4 Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT $52,451 $73,352 71.51%
5 Trenton-Ewing, NJ $50,413 $62,358 80.84%
6 Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH $50,099 $63,339 79.10%
7 Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT $48,504 $62,210 77.97%
8 New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA $47,572 $56,404 84.34%
9 Boulder, CO $46,763 $64,673 72.31%
10 Baltimore-Towson, MD $46,760 $59,036 79.21%
11 Napa, CA $46,667 $53,420 87.36%
12 New Haven-Milford, CT $46,588 $59,388 78.45%
13 Vallejo-Fairfield, CA $46,451 $54,369 85.44%
14 Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA $46,381 $58,517 79.26%
15 Ann Arbor, MI $45,053 $59,246 76.04%
16 Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA $45,005 $61,482 73.20%
17 Worcester, MA $44,909 $60,278 74.50%
18 Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown, NY $44,863 $59,156 75.84%
19 Santa Rosa-Petaluma, CA $44,802 $54,184 82.68%
20 Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA $44,790 $54,981 81.46%

Metro Areas Where Women Make the Least Money

Rank Metro Area Median earnings for female year-round, full-time workers Median earnings for male year-round, full-time workers Women's earnings as a percentage of men's earnings
1 Laredo, TX $24,741 $32,109 77.05%
2 Brownsville-Harlingen, TX $25,210 $30,712 82.09%
3 McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX $25,523 $30,884 82.64%
4 El Paso, TX $27,489 $35,384 77.69%
5 Las Cruces, NM $28,026 $35,171 79.68%
6 Alexandria, LA $28,031 $39,607 70.77%
7 Yuma, AZ $28,362 $36,945 76.77%
8 Fort Smith, AR-OK $28,467 $37,785 75.34%
9 Dalton, GA $28,478 $34,131 83.44%
10 Morristown, TN $28,897 $36,296 79.61%
11 Valdosta, GA $28,988 $36,913 78.53%
12 Wheeling, WV-OH $29,023 $43,372 66.92%
13 Lake Havasu City-Kingman, AZ $29,195 $37,799 77.24%
14 Joplin, MO $29,274 $38,304 76.43%
15 Dothan, AL $29,298 $40,804 71.80%
16 Parkersburg-Marietta-Vienna, WV-OH $29,457 $43,362 67.93%
17 Houma-Bayou Cane-Thibodaux, LA $29,535 $52,330 56.44%
18 San Angelo, TX $29,646 $37,320 79.44%
19 Hot Springs, AR $29,654 $36,434 81.39%
20 Idaho Falls, ID $29,694 $49,514 59.97%

Data was obtained from the 2012 U.S. Census.  Over 350 metro areas were included.

Woman checking bills image from Shutterstock

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