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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)
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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.
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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.”
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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