On September 14, the US Census released data on the 2020 gender and racial wage gaps in the United States. The gender wage gap narrowed slightly to 17.7¢ in 2020 from 17¢ in 2019. It is these data that are used to set the National Equal Pay Days each year, which highlight how many more days into the new year women must work to earn what white men earned in the previous year alone. For example, Latina Equal Pay Day, which is coming up on October 21, represents the nearly 11 additional months Latinas must work in order to earn the same amount white men earned in 2020. 

Labor economists caution that this narrowing of the gender and racial wage gaps may not be the good news we think. There just might be less lower wage earning women in the workforce and, therefore, the average gender wage gap appears higher.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused the largest decrease in full-time, year-round workers since the Census started collecting this data in 1967, with the majority of job loss among low-wage earners, namely among Black, Latina, and Native women. While there has been some job growth in the nearly two years since the pandemic started, women are still 3 million jobs behind where they were in February 2020. The August 2021 job report from the Labor Department showed that women received only 11.9% of the new jobs. As we review the data at the BWWC, we are asking ourselves whether shifts in balance are the true reason for the narrowing of the gender (and racial) wage gaps?

We will be releasing our 2021 Gender and Racial Wage Gap Analysis based on the anonymous reporting of our 100% Talent Compact Signers later this fall. It will be interesting to see how our data, straight from Compact Signers payroll systems, compare to these national figures. We’ve always made the case that our numbers are more accurate because they are not based on human memory as surveyed by the Census. We shall see soon whether that accuracy shows the same pattern - narrowing of the gap for all the wrong reasons.