The Nation - News from March 5, 1985

A new study by the General Accounting Office says that women working for the federal government make less than 63% as much as their male colleagues, primarily because the women are concentrated in low-paying clerical jobs and lack seniority. The GAO study, based on 1980 census data, says that women in the private sector earn 56% of what men get, and in state and local governments the salaries of women are about 71% of those for men. GAO’s report is background material prepared for Congress to use when it takes up the politically explosive issue of pay equity.