In year one of COVID-19, the gender wage gap narrowed slightly only for full-time, year-round workers, with women in low-paying jobs bearing the brunt of the crisis. For all workers, the gender gap widened slightly.
Implementing abortion bans in target states like Texas could cost local economies nearly $20 billion and hurt women’s earnings and labor force participation.
Native American and Alaska Native women are paid less than White men in all states with sufficient sample sizes—with little progress towards equity over the last decade.
The COVID-19 pandemic and related recession has both highlighted the persistent inequalities that Black women face in the labor market and exacerbated them. Black women were overrepresented in many low-paying jobs that were recognized as “essential” during the pandemic, but had often been dismissed as “low-skilled” before. [...]
Latinas have made important strides in education, business creation, and political engagement. In recent decades, they have significantly increased their high school graduation rate and representation in teaching, law, medicine, and management professions. Yet in 2019, the average Latina earned only 55.4 percent of White non-Latino men’s earnings.
American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) women have made important advances socially, economically, and politically—they are starting their own businesses, getting elected to congress, and serving essential roles in their families and communities. Despite their efforts, they continue to face a range of obstacles to their and their family’s economic wellbeing and overall economic security.
The rate of progress toward closing the gender pay gap did not increase in 2019. If the pace of change in the annual earnings ratio continues at the same rate as it has since 1960, it will take another 39 years, until 2059, for men and women to reach parity.1 This projection for equal pay has remained unchanged for the past four years.
Nearly four million undergraduates, or more than one in five college students, are parents of children under 18. These student parents face—in normal times— disproportionate economic insecurity, difficulty meeting basic needs, and significant time and caregiving demands. Yet, in spite of these challenges, they are also incredibly resilient.
Women’s median earnings are lower than men’s in nearly all occupations, whether they work in occupations predominantly done by women, occupations predominantly done by men, or occupations with a more even mix of men and women. Data for both women’s and men’s median weekly earnings for full-time work are available for 125 occupations.
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.
