The only place in America where women earn more than men? Puerto Rico

In one of the examples where the United States territory of Puerto Rico is actually ahead, instead of lagging behind the states, we know have the wage gap, as in Puerto Rico is the only US jurisdiction where women earn more than men. CNN covered a recent study from the University of Puerto Rico which details the findings:

According to the US Census Bureau, the median salary for women in Puerto Rico was $24,486 in 2016, the most recent year for which such data is available. The median salary for men was $23,711. This amounts to about a 3% difference in pay.

The slight gap isn’t a new thing, either. Data from the 2008 Puerto Rico Community survey shows women there back then made an average of 1% more than men.

For comparison American women, when taken as a whole, made an average of 76% of what men made in 2016, according to census data.
So what’s responsible for the small, yet statistically significant difference? A study conducted by researchers at the University of Puerto Rico found that Puerto Rican women are, on average, more educated than men (11.9 years of education vs. 11.2 years for men).

That said, there’s still much progress to make: Puerto Rico’s median salary is less than half of that of the poorest US state, Mississippi.