WASHINGTON—Working women got some bad news on Equal Pay Day, March 25, this year: The pay gap between them and working men—particularly white working men, the “gold standard” of such comparisons, still widens.
For every dollar a median income working man earns, a woman with the same credentials, experience, and meeting the same standards earns 75 cents, the annual survey shows. That costs the median working woman just over $14,000 a year.
That means the working woman must toil all of 2024 and through March 25 of this year to equal what the equivalent working man earned in 2024 alone.
For decades, the gap ranged from 77 cents to 82 cents—except for unionized working women. Last year, the gap between unionized working women and unionized working men was 13 cents: 87 cents per dollar. And unionized working women lagged only eight cents behind the median for all workers.
The pay gaps are even wider for working women of color: 51 cents per dollar for Latinas, 52 cents per dollar for Native American women, and 64 cents per dollar for African-American women.
The equal pay gap was 62 cents per dollar when the statistics started being compiled in the 1960s and it narrowed during the 1970s but has stalled since then.
And while the pay gap data are available this year, they may not be there next year, the organizations compiling it warn. That’s because they rely on pay comparability surveys from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission. It tracks pay discrimination.
Surveys may not happen
Those surveys are in danger, along with the rest of the Labor Department and the EEOC, from Republican President Donald Trump, who makes up his own numbers, and his puppeteer and chainsaw wielder, Elon Musk.
The gap may be wider next year, too, even if the surveys survive.
Rossana Cambron, national co-chair of the Communist Party USA, tied the issue of the pay gap to the current Trump-Musk policies of gutting the federal government and all of its agencies that provide services to the people.
“We understand that the Trump-Musk policies are making the pay gap worse,” she told People’s World. “Their chainsaw attack on the federal workers hits extra hard on women and women of color because the federal government is a major employer of women. The fight to stop the unconstitutional and illegal attacks on federal workers then is key to lessening the widening pay gap between men and women.”
Responding to the problem, including the impending end to good data collection, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., reintroduced the Paycheck Fairness Act. It would strengthen the 1962 Equal Pay Act, by mandating disclosure, in broad bands, of pay ratios between working men and working women.
The entire House Democratic Caucus co-sponsored the measure, but it will go nowhere in the GOP-majority House Education and the Workforce Committee. And the Trump regime just issued a federal contracting rule that lets firms seeking federal funds discriminate on the basis of race, sex, gender, religion, and several other factors.
DeLauro’s bill, which she has pushed for decades, puts the burden of proof on companies to show they discriminate against working women for legitimate business reasons. It also mandates more data collection—and its publication.
“Six decades after passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, women working full-time or part-time still earn 75 cents for every dollar earned by men. We are in a cost of living crisis,” said DeLauro.
“This must end. Equal pay for equal work is a simple concept: Men and women in the same job deserve the same pay. It is time we make it real for the millions of women who are being unfairly undervalued in the workplace. Let’s… empower working women by giving them the tools to ensure their contributions to the workplace are properly respected and reflected in their pay.”
Murray, one of the Senate’s most senior, and most respected, lawmakers took a direct shot at Musk and Trump. Both are known for stiffing workers (Trump) and breaking labor law (Musk).
“When you do the same work as your colleagues, you should get the same pay, and no one should get to rip you off and pay you less because you are a woman,” said Murray. “For anyone who is serious about fighting for women—for anyone who is serious about ensuring our economy is built on merit and not undermined by discrimination—this is basic stuff.
“But Trump and Elon, some of the richest men in the world, are right now eliminating a 60-year-old executive order that helped ensure federal contractors don’t discriminate against women, illegally firing commissioners at the EEOC, which enforces existing pay discrimination laws, and making it easier to rip workers off.
“Women don’t want more discrimination. They don’t want more of their pay stolen by bosses like Elon. They just want the pay they earned. They just want to be treated decently—and paid fairly no matter who they are.”
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