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Women Working For The City Of LA Make Less Than Men And Account For Only 2 of Top 100 Earners
L.A. City Hall is reflected in the facade of neighboring LAPD headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. (Chava Sanchez/LAist)
Women working for the City of Los Angeles are paid just 76% of what their male counterparts earn, on average. That’s according to a new audit released Wednesday by City Controller Ron Galperin.
The report shows that the city’s workforce is heavily male-dominated. And five years after Mayor Eric Garcetti told managers to close gender gaps, women still represent just 28% of all city employees, the same as in 2015. The percentage of female workers in L.A. remains low compared to other cities.
Among all city employees, the average hourly pay is $47 for men and $44 for women.
But the disparities become stark when examining overtime pay. Women earn just 9% of all the overtime paid out by the city — driven largely by deep gaps in the number of men and women working for the police and fire departments.
LAPD’s sworn employees are 87% male, and sworn LAFD employees are 98% male. Those two groups earned more than half of the $884 million paid out in overtime over the most recent annual pay period.
Among the city’s 100 highest-paid employees, only two are women. On average, the city’s female workers are earning $90,058 in gross pay compared to $118,454 for men.
Garcetti signed an executive directive in 2015 outlining steps to “ensure that there is no gender wage gap between City employees holding comparable positions.”
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But Galperin says the city has fallen short of that goal. He writes:
“The magnitude of these disparities makes an overnight transformation impossible."
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