Comparable Worth for Public Employees: Implementing a New Wage Policy in Minnesota

Abstract

Minnesota is a state with a long history of social and economic policy innovation concerning women’s issues. In the governmental sphere Minnesota was among the first states to adopt Mothers’ Aid and, in the last decade, Minnesota led the nation in no-fault divorce reform and programmes for sexually abused children (Jacob, 1988). In the non-governmental sphere, women of the labour movement and the political left in Minneapolis were among the few who protested about the inadequacy of Aid to Dependent Children payments that were lower than work relief payments during the Depression (Faue, 1988). More recently, St Paul was the site of the first battered women’s shelter in the USA (Gelb, 1983).

This research was supported by grants from the North-west Area Foundation, and from the Office of the Academic Vice-President, the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, the Graduate School and the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute, all at the University of Minnesota. We would like to thank Lavon Anderson, Liz Conway, and Nancy Johnson Haggmark for research assistance, and Linda Baumann, Donna Kern, l,ouise Straus and Debra Tomes Leon for secretarial support.