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.