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The Wage Gap

Source: National Women's Law Center.

2010 Median Annual Earnings by Race and Sex

2006 Median Annual Earnings by Race and Sex

2004 Median Annual Earnings by Race and Sex

Women's Earnings as a Percentage of Men's, 1951–2010

The wage gap is a statistical indicator often used as an index of the status of women's earnings relative to men's. It is also used to compare the earnings of other races and ethnicities to those of white males, a group generally not subject to race- or sex-based discrimination. The wage gap is expressed as a percentage (e.g., in 2010, women earned 77.4% as much as men) and is calculated by dividing the median annual earnings for women by the median annual earnings for men.

The Equal Pay Act was signed in 1963, making it illegal for employers to pay unequal wages to men and women who hold the same job and do the same work. At the time of the EPA's passage, women earned just 58 cents for every dollar earned by men. By 2010, that rate had increased to 77 cents. Minority women fare the worst. African-American women earn just 69 cents to every dollar earned by white men, and for Hispanic women that figure drops to merely 59 cents per dollar. Asian women are the exception, earning 90 cents for every dollar earned by white men--a sum higher than women of all other races/ethnicities as well as African-American and Hispanic men.

The wage gap between women and men cuts across a wide spectrum of occupations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 2009 the biggest wage gap was in the Financial Activities industry, with women earning 70.5 cents for every dollar men made.

The Institute for Women’s Policy Research looked at a more comprehensive 15-year model and found that women's cumulative earnings show a far greater disparity than annual comparisons. Women’s lower work hours and their years with zero earnings due to family care certainly are factors affecting the report's findings: women workers in their prime earning years earned 62% less than men, or only $0.38 for every dollar men earned. During that 15-year period, the average woman earned only $273,592 while the average man earned $722,693 (in 1999 dollars).