'Absolutely shocking': The wide pay gap among workers in Florida's court system
TAMPA, Fla. - Studies show women earn less than men in the private workforce — around 82 cents per dollar. However, in requesting state payroll data, FOX 13 discovered a much wider gap among the workers in Florida’s court system.
It shows the median pay for women who work in our state courts system is $54,771.36. The median pay for men is $134,580.78 — 41 cents per dollar.
"That’s absolutely shocking," said State Representative Anna Eskamani. "The fact that we have this huge disparity between women and men in the judicial system will have a ripple effect in how the judicial system operates, and how women and men are treated when they access the courts."
Eskamani is referring to the potential for unconscious bias, which could be more pronounced with such a pronounced disparity.
At this time, we cannot definitively explain why men earn so much more than women in our courts. We need more data, and it took more than three months with several follow-ups to the Florida Personnel system to receive median pay stats.
However, we found some correlations that may help explain what’s happening. First, Courts appear to disproportionately hire women to fill positions on the low end of the pay scale. Analysts said they see that pattern in a lot of industries.
Meanwhile, Florida sets the salaries of judges at the top of the pay scale. And the judges who earn those six-figure salaries disproportionately appear to be men.
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In other correlations, the commissions that nominate potential judges tend to skew male. Our Governors who appoint judges have all been men, and in reviewing Governor Ron DeSantis' appointments, he appears to have followed a long-running pattern of appointing more men to the bench.
"It certainly flags for me a potential issue," said Jason Bent, the associate dean of Stetson University's College of Law.
He wrote a book on paycheck disparities. While he said he needs a more sophisticated analysis to draw any conclusions, he said there are some theories that may apply, including implicit bias.
"They suggest people may tend to favor people who remind them of themselves or maybe a younger version of themselves," said Bent. "I think when people think of discrimination they often immediately think of intentional discrimination, conscious discrimination, and that can overlook the possibility of unintended discrimination unintentional unconscious bias."
Many companies address this concern through diversity training, which teaches about implicit bias and ways to avoid it. But Gov. DeSantis banned that training in public schools and the government workforce as part of his "Stop Woke Act" — which could have an unpredictable impact on the gender gap in the years to come.
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"And when you eliminate training around implicit bias in government, in schools, and try to eliminate it in the private sector, then you’re creating a system in which the problems will persist," Eskamani said.
She’s concerned unconscious bias in selecting male judges could extend to unconscious bias in their rulings, which is why she said it could affect how courts operate.
The gender mix among judges does vary from region to region.
For example, there's near parity in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco, while men outnumber in north central Florida, while women outnumber men among county judges in Miami-Dade. This is where the House Speaker's call to consolidate the circuit courts could have another unpredictable impact on the gender mix and the pay gap in our courts.
"We just really don’t know. There’s a lot of controversy about that plan. What we are reticent to predict are the unintended consequences," said USF Professor Emerita Dr. Susan MacManus.
Judges are also elected or retained, so voters could figure into this as well. But, we found no clear gender preference among voters in reviewing election results, and research suggests women may have a slight advantage in races where voters may not be that familiar with the choices like judicial races.
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"It is likely you will see a slight edge of more women voting for women," noted MacManus.
She said the gender gap may close as more women go to law school and broaden their presence in the pool of potential judges.
"We are already starting to see more going to law school now than men and that will ultimately translate into more women becoming judges," she said.
We may never know how Florida's gender pay gap in our court system compares to some other states. For example, Alabama denied our records request on grounds our request was not submitted by an Alabama citizen and noted that the state does not have the information we requested anyway.
New York stated it can't provide the information because its payroll system does not require a gender for an employee.
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Massachusetts' data shows a much smaller gap than Florida. The data indicates women in the Massachusetts Court system make around 87-cents to the dollar. But, that may not be an apples-to-apples comparison, because Massachusetts doesn't know the gender of around five dozen court workers — and they make far less than those they count as men or women.
We did find a gender pay gap similar to Florida's in the Georgia court system though it's not as pronounced. In Georgia, for each dollar men earn, women make around 49-cents.
Governor DeSantis' office declined our request for an interview. The Office of the State Courts Administrator did not respond to our questions.
We've requested more data from Florida. That could help determine whether there is or isn't a gap in pay for "equal" work, if or when the state provides that information.