Gender pay differences
* Chattanooga men: Average annual pay, adjusted for inflation, fell from $42,970 in 2005 to $35,504 in 2013. * Chattanooga women: Average annual pay, adjusted for inflation fell from $36,982 in 2005 to $35,607 in 2013. Source: NerdWallet, based upon figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Chattanooga is one of the few cities where women earn more than men.
A new study of wage data found that in 2013 the typical female worker in Chattanooga made $103 more annually than her male counterpart. Among the nation’s 368 metropolitan areas, Chattanooga was one of only 22 cities where women outpaced men in average pay.
But the female advantage in Chattanooga wasn’t necessarily due to women doing better over time. The relative advantage for female workers came primarily because women’s paychecks weren’t hit as hard as men’s during the Great Recession and its aftermath.
“It may appear that women are doing better, but in many cases it may just be a function of women working in industries that are doing better and that haven’t had the wage cuts we’ve seen in some other industries,” said Courtney Miller, an analyst for NerdWallet.com, the online news service which studied the gender pay gap in all U.S. metropolitan areas. “We saw some fairly dramatic geographic differences, and much of that undoubtedly reflects the changes in the makeup of the local economy.”