Gender Pay Gap Has Widened in Past Year

The uncontrolled gender pay gap in the United States has widened in the past year, erasing past progress toward equal pay and putting more pressure on employers to help close the gap.

Women now earn $0.82 for every dollar earned by men, down from $0.83 in 2025, according to a new report from Seattle-based compensation firm Payscale. That gap translates to $14,300 less per year in median pay, totaling more than $1 million in lost earnings over a 40‑year career. Given that there are roughly 80 million women in the U.S. workforce, the uncontrolled gender pay gap adds up to a big amount: $1.1 trillion in lost earnings every year and an estimated $86.4 trillion over women’s lifetimes.

The new data comes in time for Equal Pay Day, which was started by the National Committee on Pay Equity in 1996 to raise awareness about wage inequity. The date symbolizes how far into the new year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year. This year, it falls on March 26.

The data indicates that employers have work to do when it comes to utilizing pay transparency practices by identifying gaps, setting equitable salaries, and monitoring pay equity, said Ruth Thomas, chief compensation strategist at Payscale.

“Pay transparency is both a workforce engagement and compliance imperative,” Thomas said. “When pay gaps persist or widen, women are more likely to disengage, change jobs, or leave roles altogether, shrinking the available talent pool and increasing turnover costs for employers. At the same time, inconsistent or unjustified pay practices expose organizations to growing legal and reputational risk. Transparent, data-driven pay structures are now essential to building equitable workplaces where all employees can thrive.”

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Bigger Gaps

Payscale also found that the gender pay gap widens significantly with age and career level. For instance, women age 45 and older earn just $0.71 for every dollar earned by men. And women executives earn $0.69 for every male dollar, a decline from last year that Payscale researchers said may reflect the cumulative effects of slower career progression, caregiving penalties, and less consistent access to leadership roles. 

Women working from home also experience greater disparities. Women working from home “as needed” experience the widest uncontrolled pay gap ($0.76), while women in non‑remote roles show the narrowest gap ($0.89), influenced by standardized wages in unionized and minimum‑wage roles, suggesting flexibility may still come at a cost, Payscale found.

The Role of Pay Transparency

While pay transparency efforts have grown in recent years — several states with pay transparency legislation in place, for instance, are making progress on closing gender pay gaps — there is more work to be done, said Lulu Seikaly, senior employment counsel at Payscale.

Fact Sheet: State Pay Transparency Laws: What HR Needs to Know

“Transparency works when it’s treated as a business process, not a checkbox,” Seikaly said. “For example, extremely wide pay ranges may comply with the letter of the law but not the spirit and are not viewed favorably by job candidates. With expanding state laws and new global requirements like the EU Pay Transparency Directive, employers should actively monitor, document, justify, and communicate pay decisions — or risk falling out of compliance.”

Meanwhile, employers would also be wise to look at pay transparency as a talent strategy. Payscale’s research found that women who change jobs see higher pay, signaling that retention is a pressure point for many employers. 

“Women who stay in their roles may do so for flexibility rather than compensation, increasing the risk of sudden attrition when there are more transparent or competitive opportunities available,” Payscale researchers noted.