The gender wage gap, which has historically remained low and even worsened at times, is finally showing signs of improving—but not for Black women.
This week, new data from the Census Bureau revealed that women working full-time, year-round earned 83.9 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2025, up from 80.6 cents in 2024. This means women’s median earnings increased 3.2% over the year while men’s remained relatively the same, narrowing the gender wage gap by more than three cents in a single year.
“While the data reflects some important progress for women, that isn’t the full story,” Emily Martin, chief program officer at the National Women’s Law Center, began in a statement.
But a closer look at the racial breakdown reveals that the progress hasn’t been shared equally. Black women were the only demographic whose wage gap actually widened, with earnings falling from 65 cents to just 64 cents for every dollar earned by white men. In 2025, the typical earnings of Black women working full-time year-round were $51,950, a 1.7% decline. These numbers are raising new concerns, especially from Women’s policy organizations, about how, in a year when it got better overall, it got worse for Black women.
The new data is especially concerning when you consider Black women have actually been losing ground for years. The decline has been steady: Black women earned 69 cents for every dollar earned by white men in 2022, falling to 66 cents in 2023 and 65 cents last year.
Latina women also remained far behind, earning $48,670 in typical full-time, year-round earnings in 2025, which works out to just under 60 cents for every dollar earned by white men. And while their full-time wage gap narrowed slightly, when part-time and part-year workers were included, Latinas also dipped slightly, earning roughly 53 cents to the white man’s dollar, down from about 54 cents the year before.
More than anything, these numbers underscore the problem with talking about “women” as a single economic group when their economic realities can look vastly different across race. These numbers are arriving on the heels of a particularly rough year for Black women in employment. In 2025, the EPI found that the employment rate for Black women fell by 1.4% points, one of its sharpest one-year declines in 25 years. The losses were especially pronounced among college-educated Black women and public-sector workers.
For generations, the advice for closing racial wealth and wage disparities has always been some combination of “get a decent education, strive for professional careers, and get that stable job.”
Black women have pursued those goals in spades. Yet research has repeatedly shown that education alone does not close the wage gap. Their relatively high representation in public-sector jobs also meant that disruptions in that sector during 2025 had an outsized impact on their economic progress.
This isn’t by accident. It’s not an oversight. It’s systemic, and we simply refuse to actually solve the problem. For context, Black women entered the modern American labor market already segregated into some of its lowest-paid work; there’s no way around it. Around the turn of the 20th century, Black women’s employment opportunities were heavily restricted, particularly to domestic service. Later, this occupational segregation persisted even as Black women forged paths into other professions. Today, according to the Department of Labor, more than half of Black women work in occupations where they’re overrepresented, and those roles tend to pay less.
This systemic divide is seriously costing Black women, too. The Department of Labor also estimates that occupational and industry segregation alone cost Black women $42.7 billion in wages in 2023 compared with white men.
If Black women remain disproportionately in industries that America systematically pays less, equal-pay enforcement within individual jobs can only go so far. Higher wages in historically undervalued sectors like care and education, access to higher-paying occupations, stronger anti-discrimination enforcement, pay transparency, and affordable child care could all address the many different sides of the problem. And then keeping Black women employed once they get there, of course.
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research explicitly connects the widening 2025 gap with the extraordinary job losses Black women experienced last year. Its president, Jamila Taylor, said the latest numbers make the need for policy intervention more urgent.
“Black and Latina women—and our entire economy—cannot afford to wait more than a century for them to be paid the value they contribute to our economy,” Taylor said in a statement.
“From the more than 250,000 Black women who lost jobs in 2025 amid the administration’s attacks on federal employees, to the Latina women facing fear and uncertainty thanks to immigration enforcement that targets their communities,” she continued. “Women of color are bearing the brunt of our sluggish economy—and the need for real policy change is more urgent than ever.”
As many Black women are the financial backbones and breadwinners for their families, Sara Estep, economist at the Center for American Progress, noted, “The gender wage gap translates directly into less money for not just women, but also their families to cover everyday expenses, build savings, and achieve long-term financial security.”
But help is on the way. As the new data arrived, some lawmakers are already pushing for policy responses. Yesterday, Sept. 17, Rep. Ayanna Pressley reintroduced her federal job guarantee resolution, explicitly citing rising Black unemployment and racial and gender income gaps. She has also been pressing the Federal Reserve specifically about Black women’s unemployment.
Meanwhile, In July. Reps. Alma Adams, Lois Frankel, Bonnie Watson Coleman, and Teresa Leger Fernández, along with Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, introduced a Black Women’s Equal Pay Day resolution recognizing the wage disparity and calling for congressional action. Adams specifically described systemic discrimination and barriers to opportunity as drivers behind the gap.
While bleak, the latest numbers don’t mean Black women are destined to keep losing ground, though. The same data showing that the overall wage gap improved by more than three cents in a year proves that these numbers can move.
