A report on the WAGE Project in Wyoming

News from the Wyoming Women's Foundation:

The WAGE Project WAGE works to promote gender equality through instructional workshops. These $tart $mart workshops were held statewide, including Cheyenne, Laramie, Casper, Powell, and one session through video conferencing. Anne Houle led these workshops and traveled statewide with Richelle Keinath of the Wyoming Women's Foundation, and Sarah Mikesell-Growney from Equality Initiatives, two Wyoming organizations concerned with the wage gap. Attendees were able to gather information on the wage gap, and learn, through role play, how to negotiate a salary. This is one crucial step in shrinking the wage gap. To put this into perspective, the wage gap cost women $17,000 per year in 2006 according to the Wyoming Council for Women's Issues. Over a lifetime, this compounds to a difference of approximately $1.2 million dollars less for women than equally qualified men.

The workshops also provided an opportunity to become a workshop facilitator, in order to further disseminate information and education on the wage gap and how an individual can address it. Hopefully, WAGE has brought one tool Wyoming can use to decrease the gap, which is the worst in the nation.
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