Ronald J. Hansen, The Arizona Republic
Arizona gets a “C” on economic equality for working women in the latest ratings by a research group that examines issues for women and families.
The state’s overall score skidded 13 places since 2006 and now ranks 29th among the states using several measures, from earnings compared to men to the percentage of women in the labor force, as tallied by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a Washington, D.C.,-based policy research group.
The state’s middling grade may be deceptively high. That’s because one of the four categories the IWPR uses, the ratio of women’s earnings to men’s, is relatively good in Arizona, but only because men fare poorly compared to the national average.
Dorothy Wolden, president of the Phoenix chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners, thinks the grade is wrong in the other direction.
