Status of Women & Girls in Minnesota

Women in Minnesota still face persistent pay disparities, with the average woman earning just 81 cents for every dollar earned by a man, figures unchanged since 2016. The gap is even wider for women of color: Black women make 61 cents, Asian American women 72 cents, Hmong women 59 cents, and Somali women 58 cents for every dollar earned by white men. Over a 40-year career, these disparities can cost women hundreds of thousands of dollars, and over $1 million for Black, Latina, and Native American women.

On Wednesday, March 4, the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota (WFM) highlighted these trends at a press conference at the State Capitol Building, unveiling the 2026 “Status of Women & Girls in Minnesota” report. The biannual study, the most comprehensive of its kind since 2009, helps guide public policy and public/private partnerships across the state.

Minnesota ranks as the second-best state in the nation for women’s representation in the workplace, with 51 percent of jobs held by women. But researchers warn that these numbers mask deeper inequalities. “Wages relate to the here and now, but if you aggregate over years and decades and generations, the disparities in wealth are massive,” Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development Commissioner Matt Varileck said.

“It is a fact that women, when in power, will more often center the community, center children, center our next generation and center what’s best for the collective good,” Senator Alice Mann (D-50) added. “Women are less likely to prioritize personal financial gains or uphold unfair power structures, and yet we are still fighting to be in the room.”

Even when accounting for different career paths, there is still a wage gap due to illegal disparities within the same position. While the Minnesota legislature recently developed requirements for employers to post a salary range for positions, lead researcher Christina Ewing sees the state as far from a solution.

Ewing noted the inaccessibility of affordable childcare as another major economic issue. “High quality childcare is out of reach for Minnesota families,” she explained. “Ninety-three percent of Minnesota’s two-parent families spend significantly more than the federal guideline of spending just 7% of one’s income on childcare. … It doesn’t help that the federal government’s recent freeze on federal funding for childcare in the state impacts our lowest-wage-earning women [the most] because … those are the women that can least afford to take a day off of work when they lack childcare.”

Varileck noted that Minnesota is now the 13th state to have a paid family leave program. The program offers partial wages for those on family leave, whether maternal or paternal. “We’re in the ballpark of 20,000 Minnesotans that have been approved for leave, and the statistics show that 69% of those folks are women,” Varileck said.

The program also incorporates safety leave, which supports victims of domestic violence. WFM’s research showed that one in three Minnesotan women have experienced sexual violence, and one in five have experienced physical violence.

Two-thirds of all Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients are women. Recent months have seen Minnesota’s hunger relief network uniquely strained by the federal shutdown, budget cuts, and Operation Metro Surge. This strain disproportionately impacts women.

The research also looked at women’s representation in leadership roles. Women are 37 percent of the state’s legislature, slightly down from 2023’s historic high of 39 percent. Ewing noted that the percentage of the legislature made up of women of color has stabilized at slightly below proportional to the population.

According to WFM’s research, “Women legislators outperform men. At the federal level, congresswomen secure about 9 percent more federal outlay money than congressmen.”

Women are more likely to vote than men, both nationally and in Minnesota.

President and CEO of WFM, Gloria Perez, added that “23 percent of Minnesota’s corporate executives are now women, but at that current rate, it would still take 53 years to reach gender parity in those spaces.”

She also noted that progress for some women does not mean progress for all women. Women of color often lag behind even as white women make strides.

It’s not clear how to fix some of these decades-long trends. While some progress has been made, issues like the wage gap have persisted.

Senator Mann finds hope in her work with the Young Women’s Cabinet, a group of young women and leaders aged 16-24 appointed by the governor. “I know that our future is bright when young women lead,” she said. “This report shows that while women are leading in their families and in communities and in sectors of the workforce that do the most to care for our children, the sick and the elderly, our systems do not work for all of us.”

Read the full report here: https://www.wfmn.org/research/status-of-women-and-girls-in-minnesota/.

Anya Armentrout is a freelance journalist, a student at Macalester College, and a contributing writer for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.