U.S. Labor and Wages

An NPR report marking Equal Pay Day 2026 says new Census Bureau data show women working full time, year‑round earned an average of 81 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2024, down from 83 cents the year before and 84 cents the year before that. Advocates note this is the first time since the 1960s that the U.S. has seen the gender wage gap widen in back‑to‑back years, pushing Equal Pay Day to March 26 — one day later than in 2025. The Census attributes much of the change to men’s median income rising 3.7% between 2023 and 2024 while women’s median income stayed flat, against a backdrop of persistent occupational segregation that leaves women concentrated in low‑wage work. Deborah Vagins of the Equal Pay Today coalition says federal efforts to narrow the gap stalled under Congress, pointing to the failure of Biden‑era pay‑transparency proposals and the Trump administration’s earlier termination of an Obama‑era EEOC rule that required large employers to report pay data by sex and race. The coalition is now pushing for a future Congress to restore federal pay‑data collection and enact nationwide pay‑transparency rules, arguing that without better measurement and disclosure it will be difficult to reverse the recent backslide.