Americans are celebrating Equal Pay Day on Thursday, but the calendar seems to be moving in the wrong direction. The date—marking how long into 2026 women must work to match what men earned the previous year—falls on March 26 this time around, one day later than last year, as the US gender pay gap widens for the second year in a row. Census data shows that women working full time year-round currently take home 81 cents for every dollar earned by men, down from 83 cents the year before and 84 cents the year before that, per NPR. It's the first back-to-back setback since the 1960s, says Deborah Vagins of the Equal Pay Today coalition, which also tracks later "equal pay" dates for specific groups, including Black women (July 21), mothers (Aug. 6), and Latinas (Oct. 8).
The latest numbers are from 2024, under President Biden, and reflect a 3.7% rise in men's median income, while women's stayed flat. A new AP-NORC survey also shows a gap in perception: About 60% of employed women in the US believe men have more opportunities to earn more money on the job, while only 4 in 10 employed men believe the same. The poll also found that while most of the employed women surveyed said that their pay was a "major" source of stress for them, only about 40% of men felt the same.
Advocates say tools to close the gap are weakening, per NPR: A federal pay-data reporting rule launched under Obama was halted by the first Trump administration, and efforts to pass nationwide pay-transparency laws have stalled in Congress. Some states require salary ranges in job postings, with mixed impact. Vagins argues that without robust data and transparency, it will be hard to address disparities that shape women's earnings, retirement, and generational wealth: "If you can't measure what's going on, you can't fix it." Ms. Magazine details some ways in which advocates for gender pay equality are "pushing back."
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