INSTITUTE INDEX: Senate rejects women's pay equality

Amount U.S. women earn for every dollar earned by men: 77 cents

Amount African-American women earn for every dollar earned by a white man: 61 cents

Amount Latinas earn for every dollar earned by a white man: 52 cents

Amount women living in Southern states* earn for every dollar earned by a man: 75 cents

Percent of U.S. voters who in a recent poll expressed support for a new law to give women more tools to get fair pay in the workplace:  84

Percent of U.S. voters who said they strongly support such a law: 72

Percent of Democrats who strongly support such a law: 83

Percent of Republicans who strongly support such a law: 61

Month when the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Paycheck Fairness Act, a measure designed to remedy income gender disparities: 1/2009

Bipartisan vote by which the House approved the bill: 256-163

Date when the Senate considered the same bill: 11/17/2010

Number of votes the Senate needed to end a Republican filibuster against the bill: 60

The Senate's final vote to end the filibuster: 58-41

Number of Senate Democrats who voted against the bill: 1**

Number of Senate Republicans who voted for the bill: 0

Of the Senators voting against the bill, percent from the South: 41

Of the Senators voting for the bill, percent from the South: 16

Portion of U.S. families in which mothers are the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners: 2/3

Percent by which the number of married couples with children depending exclusively on women's earnings rose last year in the U.S.: 36

* Facing South counts among the Southern states Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia

** Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.)

Click on figure to go to source.

(Map from "Men's and Women's Earnings by State: 2008 American Community Survey," American Community Survey Reports, U.S. Census Bureau, September 2009. Click on image for a larger version.)