For the first time since data has been available going back to the 1960s, the gender pay gap widened for a second year in a row.
The average woman who worked full-time year-round in 2024 was paid just 81 cents for every $1 paid to a man; that’s down from 83 cents in 2023 and 84 cents in 2022, according to the latest data from the Census Bureau.
The pay gap grew in 2024 as men’s salaries increased while women’s stayed the same. The median income for men working full-time was $71,090 in 2024, a 3.7% bump from the year prior. Women earned $57,520, little changed from 2023, according to the Census Bureau.
Pay gaps are wider for Black women and Latinas, who were paid 65 cents and 58 cents, respectively, for every $1 paid to a white, non-Hispanic man, according to an analysis from Equal Rights Advocates, a civil rights nonprofit.
On the one hand, it’s a good sign that men’s wages increased last year, says Katherine Gallagher Robbins, a senior fellow at the National Partnership for Women and Families. And when considering part-time workers, women’s median earnings grew about 5% between 2023 and 2024.
But overall, “the concerning part is that women’s wages are not keeping pace,” Robbins tells CNBC Make It. “What we would like to see is everyone’s wages to be increasing and for that gap to be closing at the same time.”
Falling earnings among Black women are especially concerning as they face a 6.7% unemployment rate — nearing a four-year high, Robbins says.
The latest Census data notably pre-dates the Trump administration’s new policies, including ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs and slashing the federal workforce, which some experts say could drive further equity concerns.
“The Trump administration’s policies have frankly poured fuel on the fire, which means in all likelihood, Black women are in an even more challenging position this year,” Robbins says.
Moms are leaving the workforce in record numbers
Pay equity experts say providing adequate and accessible child care is crucial to supporting women in the workforce.
More than 400,000 women, many of them mothers, left the workforce in the first half of 2025, according to new research from the University of Kansas. It’s the steepest decline in more than 40 years for moms of young children.
“At a time when women, including many mothers, are leaving the labor force at record rates, it is a five-alarm fire to see that the gender wage gap is widening for an unprecedented second year in a row,” said Emily Martin, chief program officer at the National Women’s Law Center, in a release.
Research shows the gender pay gap has been closing for decades, but progress has nearly stalled since the mid-1990s as wage growth for both men and women has flattened.