March 25 is Equal Pay Day in 2025. In the U.S., this date represents when women actually start being paid for their work, given the pay gap between men and women. Here’s the math: To earn the same pay as men in the previous year, women would theoretically need to work nearly three additional months.
Currently, women in America make slightly over 85% of what men make. This gap is slightly narrower than in previous years. The difference between gendered pay is narrowest among youngest workers, who also tend to make less money overall, and grows larger as workers continue in their employment fields.
Don’t celebrate the slightly narrower gap just yet. Here’s what you need to know.
What is the pay gap?
To calculate the gender wage gap, scholars use data from the U.S. Census Bureau to create a ratio of median annual earnings for women working full-time compared to men working full-time. Because we know that women are also more likely to work part-time, especially when they have children, this ratio will also underestimate the extent of the U.S. wage gap.
What’s more, pay discrepancies are far worse when we consider intersectional identities. For example, white women would need to work an additional three months (in theory). But Black women would need to work until July, and Latinas until October.
And this pay difference adds up over a worker’s lifetime. The calculations on 2018 salaries, for example, meant the median white woman in America earned $10,000 a year less than her male counterpart. For Latinas, that gap is over $28,000.
Among OECD countries – a group comprising 38 countries, including the United States – the gender wage gap is slightly lower. In 2022, women within the OECD made 89% of what men made. One way that women in these relatively wealthier countries have narrowed the gender wage gap is by increasing their educational credentials. As a result we often see more women in traditional male spaces of power, like board rooms, yet women overall remain consistently underpaid. In some ways, the gender wage gap appears to be improving, but in others it is simply taking a different form.
Why is there a gender wage gap?
Studies show that discrimination, occupational selection, hours worked, and leaving the workforce all contribute to pay differences between men and women. However, individuals’ beliefs about wage discrepancies tend to emphasize either more structural causes like discrimination or occupational segregation, or focus on individualized factors, like choosing to have children or work in particular types of jobs
Depending on the roots of the gender wage gap, economists and policymakers arrive at different policy solutions.
Perceptions of the U.S. gender wage gap differ substantially by both gender and political party. For example, women are more likely than men to say that the gender gap in wages is a result of differential treatment by employers. In other words, women are more likely to believe that pay differences reflect discrimination against women as a class of people. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to believe that women choose to have children or select occupations that don’t pay as well.
The same survey data show that Republican men, specifically, are more likely to believe that the gender pay gap is smaller than it truly is. And this group is also more likely to see any pay gap as the result of women’s choices of occupation.
Another major contributor to this wage gap is the reality that having children harms women’s long-term wages. Mothers are more likely to exit employment for some period of time, work fewer hours, or be more likely to leave the workforce if they experience uncertainties in childcare. Fathers do not face similar penalties and are often rewarded with additional pay when they have children. The toll on working women can be onerous. As sociologist Jessica Calarco explains, “Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women.”
Changes to the EEOC could make discrimination worse
Past administrations have monitored wage gaps and worked to protect women from discrimination. Two independent government agencies are critical for combatting pay discrimination, especially for women. Both organizations are now under attack by the Trump administration.
First, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) protects most workers from pay discrimination by their employers. Workers can bring their claims of discrimination to the EEOC to be investigated. The EEOC’s mandate is to enforce federal laws related to job discrimination. Generally, however, it’s difficult for individuals to make a claim against an employer. It is hard to show discrimination if you don’t know why (or that) you were paid differently, for example.
In 2025, however, the new administration has prioritized pursuing claims unrelated to gender pay discrimination. This shift will likely further tilt the power balance toward employers rather than employees. The Trump administration also fired two of the three Democratic commissioners. Neither commissioner’s term was up, and this action has left the EEOC unable to pursue formal actions against employers.
This change in directive comes from the very top of the EEOC. President Trump’s appointee to head the organization announced that a priority would be “rooting out unlawful DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination” and focusing instead on creating single-sex spaces and defending workers who would like them. Currently, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has no quorum. That means that nothing can proceed at the moment – not even the new institutional priorities.
Trump also fired National Labor Relations Board members
A second federal group, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) investigates unfair labor practices in the private sector. The NLRB has significant specialized knowledge of labor law and labor practices, and standard courts do not have the bandwidth or specialized knowledge to hear these cases. Trump fired two of its board members, contravening federal law that allows the president to remove a member only in cases of misconduct. Several judges have since ruled that the president cannot fire a board member, which the administration is appealing.
This change to the NLRB comes at a time when it is set to hear a case about whether SpaceX engaged in unfair labor practices for firing eight engineers who had circulated a petition alleging that CEO Elon Musk engaged in sexist conduct and discriminated against women. In response, SpaceX, as well as several other companies, mounted around two dozen complaints arguing that the NLRB has too much unchecked power.
Both the EEOC and NLRB can intervene against employers on behalf of individual workers (EEOC) or workers collectively (NLRB). The institutional changes of early 2025 will shape the pathways workers have to redress grievances.
The barrier to entry in filing a complaint against an employer is already very high, meaning most workers will tolerate a lot in their workplaces – or simply leave. With fewer pathways forward, workers will likely file even fewer grievances, and employers may feel emboldened. In the months and years ahead, we may see the U.S. gender wage gap grow wider, if women do not have the same enforceable labor protections.
Equal Pay Day is a small reminder that pay is still unequal, and that there is more work to be done.
Laura C. Bucci is a 2024-2025 Good Authority fellow.
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