Men's wages went up last year; women's incomes didn't budge, per new data out Tuesday morning.
Why it matters: It's a worrying sign that the slow march toward pay equity for women is stumbling.
Zoom in: The median woman working full time in 2024 earned 81% of what the median man earned — a drop of 2 percentage points from the year before and the second consecutive annual decline.
- The pay gap is now back to where it was in 2017, when the burgeoning #MeToo movement drew wide attention to sex discrimination.
By the numbers: Men got raises this year; women did not.
- The median income for men, working full-time, was $71,090 in 2024, an increase of 3.7%.
- Women earned $57,520, essentially flat from 2023.
Between the lines: Wages for workers without a high-school degree were up 5.5% last year — and that may be driving the gap, Katherine Gallagher Robbins, a senior fellow at the National Partnership for Women & Families, tells Axios.
- Men account for 69% full-time, year-round workers aged 25 and older without a high school degree.
- "It's great to see men's wages rising, it's critical to make sure women don't fall farther behind, especially as the cost of living has increased," Robbins says.
The big picture: The wage gap doesn't necessarily mean women earn less than men for the same types of jobs.
- Instead, it is a useful indicator of broad inequality between men and women in the labor market.
Zoom out: Women make up the majority of low-wage workers in the U.S., partly because many are juggling paid work with caring for children. Jobs that can accommodate those schedules tend to pay less.
- Women are more likely to take career breaks, slowing down wage growth. Plus, jobs typically done by women often pay less than those done by a man. For example, housekeepers typically don't make us much as janitors.
What to watch: There are signs that the labor market for women is worse this year — particularly for Black women who are seeing a spike in unemployment, in the wake of federal layoffs and the DEI crackdown.
- Hundreds of thousands of mothers also left the workforce in the first half of the year.
- "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 liberal National Women's Law Center.
