Women in Maryland Pay More in Taxes as a Share of Their Incomes

  • December 1, 2015
  • Mark Scott

Because women in Maryland typically earn less than men, they are more likely to pay a higher percentage of their household income in state and local taxes. The state’s highest-income households – more likely to be headed by men – pay a lower percentage of their yearly earnings in state and local taxes compared to middle-class and low-income households, which are more likely to be headed by women.

Women in Maryland, on average, earn more than their counterparts in all but one other state. Yet for every dollar women in Maryland earn, men on average earn 13 cents more—a pay gap that leaves households headed by women thousands of dollars behind those headed by men. This means that the more than 1.4 million female workers in Maryland (49 percent of the workforce) tend to shoulder a larger burden than men do when it comes to supporting our schools, the construction of our roads, and other services.