The gender pay gap is not a myth or a relic of the past: It is a persistent, present-day reality that costs women thousands of dollars every year and grows over a lifetime. For women of color, the gap is even wider and more stubborn, reflecting the combined weight of both racial and gender discrimination. Native American and Latina women are among the hardest hit, earning a fraction of what White men are paid. And at the current rate of progress, it will take around 200 years for Black women to reach parity with White men.
The gap is driven by a range of interconnected factors, including discrimination in hiring, promotions, and pay decisions; occupational segregation that concentrates women in lower-paying fields; and caregiving penalties that fall disproportionately on mothers. Less money earned means less saved for retirement, less invested in housing and education, and less financial security across a lifetime—inequities that ripple across families and communities for generations.
Featured Policy Solutions
Promote higher wages and better job quality in industries dominated by women.
Policymakers should look to a range of solutions that seek to improve job quality, including increasing the minimum wage and abolishing the tipped minimum wage; providing comprehensive access to paid leave, including sick leave and family leave, and child care; and strengthening protections against unfair scheduling practices to ensure that workers have access to a fair workweek. Policymakers should also promote equity for part-time workers, including access to equitable pay rates and benefits accrual.
Reduce occupational segregation and support women’s access to and retention in fields traditionally dominated by men.
Policymakers should advance efforts that include supporting career counseling and guidance on the opportunities for women in STEM and related fields, and also ensure enforcement and accountability to ensure women are not pushed out of such fields because of discrimination, gender-based violence, and harassment.
Improve existing equal pay protections by closing loopholes and gaps in statute and ensuring that federal agencies have resources and are fulfilling their charge to monitor and enforce existing protections.
Policymakers should support efforts designed to strengthen and update the protections of the Equal Pay Act, including protecting workers who share salary information from retaliation and closing loopholes that allow employers to pay women less than men. In addition, policymakers should invest in and conduct oversight to ensure that the agencies responsible for this work, namely the EEOC and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), are carrying out their missions.
