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Our giving levels reflect real data from IWPR’s research—because evidence shapes not just our work, but how we invite you to support it.
The gender wage gap in weekly earnings for full-time workers in the United States narrowed marginally between 2018 and 2019. In 2019, the ratio of women’s to men’s median weekly full-time earnings was 81.5 percent, an increase of 0.4 percent since 2018, when the ratio was 81.1 percent, leaving a wage gap of 18.5 percent, compared with 18.9 percent in 2018 (Figure 1). Women’s median weekly earnings for full-time work were $821 in 2019 compared with $1,007 for men. Adjusting for inflation, women’s median earnings increased by 2.2 percent compared with 2018; men’s earnings increased by 1.7 percent.
Another measure of the wage gap, the ratio of women’s and men’s median annual earnings for full-time, year-round workers, was 81.6 percent in 2018 (data for 2019 are not yet available). An earnings ratio of 81.6 percent means that the gender wage gap for full-time, year-round workers is 18.4 percent.
Unlike the gender earnings ratio for full-time year-round workers, the ratio for weekly earnings excludes self-employed workers, does not include earnings from annual bonuses, and includes workers who work only part of the year. Both earnings ratios are for full-time workers only. When all workers with earnings are included, the gap in earnings is much larger because women are more likely than men to work part-time or take time out of paid work to manage childrearing and other caregiving work. Over a 15 year period women workers’ earnings were just 49 percent—less than half—of men’s earnings, a wage gap of 51 percent in 2001-2015.
