New Census Bureau info on women's earnings and poverty in female-headed families

Each August, the U.S. Census Bureau releases data about the preceding year. Media outlets have been analyzing and publicizing various slices of this data, as I have noted in a previous post. Yesterday, the 2007 data on poverty, income and health insurance revealed some interesting information about women. Here are some of the gendered highlights (or lowlights, if you will!):

• In 2007, the ratio for earnings of women who worked full time, year-round was 78% of that for corresponding men. The real earnings for men who worked full time, year-round climbed between 2006 and 2007, from $43,460 to $45,113. For women,the corresponding increase was from $33,437 to $35,102. These increases follow 3 years of annual decline in real earnings for both men and women. (I believe that the rate last year was $.77 to the male $1, so this represents a slight improvement for women).
• For each of the 50 states, women had lower median earnings [than men?] in the 2007 American Community Survey (the basis for this data b/w the decennial censuses). The District of Columbia had the highest ratio of women's-to-men's earnings (93.4%).
• Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Alaska had median earnings above $50K for men who worked full-time, year-round in the 2007 American Community Survey. No state had median earnings for women above $50K, but the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut had median earnings for women who worked full time, year-round above $40K.
• Married couple families had a poverty rate of 4.9% compared with 28.3% for female-householder, no-husband-present families and 13.6% for those with a male householder and no wife present.

No comment. These sobering statistics speak for themselves.