We’re going the wrong way, people.
The gender pay gap is getting even worse: in 2024, full-time, year-round working women earned 81 cents on the dollar compared to men. That’s down from 83 cents in 2023 and 84 cents in 2022.
It’s honestly a bit shocking to hear. Although we all recognize that we have a ways to go to reach pay equity, it’s natural to assume we’re just going to keep inching forward — slowly, surely, always making progress.
Nope, we’re actually going backward. This setback is a frustrating and telling reflection of something a lot of us feel in our daily lives. Women didn’t suddenly get less ambitious or less skilled. This reversal is due to a whole host of systemic failures and an increased burden on families just to hold it together. And as usual, women, and especially moms, are picking up the slack.
But this isn’t some inevitable trend. We can refuse to let it become one. There are levers each of us can pull — policy, advocacy, negotiation tactics, systemic transparency — to put the wheels back on the tracks. Let’s spend this edition of The First Word unpacking the many ways we got here, and laying out some strategies to get us out.
Why the Gender Pay Gap Is Widening (and What We Can Do About It)
The last time we saw a real widening of the gender pay gap was back in 2003 — the early days of the internet, before YouTube, Gmail, or Facebook. It feels like a lifetime ago. And while today’s economy looks very different — with more women working than ever before — the progress isn’t evenly shared. As the workforce grows, more women of color and younger women are joining it, but too often, they’re concentrated in lower-wage jobs.
But there’s another trend that’s particularly relevant for this movement of moms. We’ve talked at length about the motherhood penalty, the term for the systemic disadvantages women face at work and in society just because they’re moms. It’s well established that the time women sacrifice to have and raise kids interrupts their careers and reduces their long-term earning potential.
Then there’s the burden of being the default parent, the one who typically takes on the role of lead caregiver. It’s this parent who usually leaves work early to get the little one to practice or stays home because they’re sick. And 75% of the time, that default parent is, in opposite sex couples, the mom.
It’s no wonder that many women downshift their careers, or take on more flexible work (by choice or by need), even if that means it pays less. And as more workplaces are mandating returns to the office, eliminating flexibility moms have come to rely on, many are opting out or taking pay cuts.
The Math Ain’t Mathing
For a lot of moms, it comes down to a cost-benefit analysis. With child care outpacing the cost of housing and other basic household needs, it’s hard for many to justify the stress and struggle of maintaining a job that pays less. Thousands of moms have stories like our Moms First community member Meghan from New Mexico:
“I had to leave my job initially during the pandemic since I had a medically fragile baby, and day care was not an option for him. Even if it had been, my family could not afford the cost of child care totaling over 85% of my paycheck. The math did not math. Fast forward 2 years when my baby was healthy enough to go to school, I started a job that promised to be flexible and a family member who would watch him 3 days during the week. Nothing worked. The position really wasn’t flexible… and my childcare was inconsistent — constantly having to shuffle or cancel or bring my baby with me to the office facing glares and whispered complaints. I quit again.”
More Women Working — But Not All Progress Is Equal
The occupations women are more likely to take tend to be lower-paying than careers in sectors with higher salaries like finance and tech. We’ve all heard of the glass ceiling standing in the way of women being elevated to executive positions, but we’re now observing a glass floor as more women get stuck in the middle rungs of the ladder, without the same opportunities for raises and promotions as their male counterparts.
That’s before you consider the unconscious bias in performance evaluation that unfairly hinders women’s upward mobility and studies that show that even when women advocate more aggressively for themselves in salary negotiations, they still get turned down at higher rates.
The DEI Backlash Is Making It Worse
I can hear you yelling at the screen — yes, we know all that, but none of these factors are new. Why are we going backward now?
Let’s name one of the elephants in the room. The cultural and political backlash against DEI policies are having their intended effects: less transparency, less accountability, and a concerted roll-back of policies and protections that help workplaces be better and fairer. That’s, of course, even more true for women of color and other marginalized groups who face compounded effects from this regressive policy change.
Perhaps most of all, the post-COVID labor market is squeezing moms particularly hard. We’re still feeling the effects of the Great Resignation, the pandemic-era phenomenon when millions of Americans (mostly women) left the workforce altogether. Those aforementioned soaring costs make it all the more likely that women’s real wages are stagnating, or falling behind. And for many moms, as Meghan put it, the math just doesn’t math.
Here’s What We Can Do About It
Enough of the negative. Let’s talk about what we can do to reverse this slide in pay equality.
As individuals, it starts with knowing what you’re worth. Research salary data and talk openly with peers to establish benchmarks. Go into salary negotiations with receipts and armed with proven tactics, from leveraging other job offers to requesting assignments that put you in visible leadership roles.
At our workplaces, focus on building and using our collective power as working moms. Compare notes and push for “flexibility portfolios” that offer hybrid time, compressed weeks or other forward-thinking policies without accepting drastic pay cuts as a trade-off.
A lot of the change we need happens at the institutional level. Pay transparency and salary bands work, as does preventing employers from asking a candidate’s salary history. And we can demand stronger (or reinstated) DEI programs that keep employers honest and correct pay inequities — from regular pay audits by gender and role to more neutral performance evaluation systems.
And of course, we need employers to offer child care benefits and paid leave policies for all parents (not just moms!) to foster shared caregiving and give parents the necessary flexibility to actually be parents.
Let’s be clear: Losing ground on equal pay is unacceptable. It’s an ugly reflection of where we’re in America today. But we also have to remember that we are not powerless to reverse this setback. Let’s get to work.
Action Center
Let’s Turn This Setback Into a Turning Point
I won’t blow smoke. To truly make headway on equal pay, we need big, structural changes. (And trust me, we haven’t lost sight of the national and state-level fights for child care and paid leave.)
But the truth is we — as individuals and as teams of colleagues — have power. So I’m challenging every person reading this to take one action to help close the gap in your organization or empower a friend to do the same. Maybe you can inspire an audit of your team’s compensation this year — or maybe you can compile benchmarks among peers in similar roles.
These actions may feel small and localized, but that’s how real progress happens: piece by piece, until the tide is turned. I want to look back at these depressing headlines about the gender pay gap as the wake-up call that inspired thousands of moms to take action and ensure this was just a blip in the broader history of gender equality.
Mark Your Calendar
Sound Off for Paid Leave
Our friends at Bobbie are teaming up with Cardi B to make some noise for parents.
Call 1-732-QQ-CARDI to leave a voicemail for Congress about how the lack of federal paid leave or safer birth support has affected you or someone you love.
Bobbie’s goal? 1,000 messages delivered straight to lawmakers. Eight parents will be selected to receive three months of paid leave*, courtesy of Bobbie. Learn more.
For our New York community, stop by Jane’s Carousel in Brooklyn Bridge Park this Saturday, Oct 25 (9 a.m.–1 p.m. ET) to “sound off” in person and snag free gifts for the first callers. RSVP for the event.
*Terms and conditions apply. See website for details.
Things to Read, Watch, and Listen to This Week
- Resource: I AM A CHILD CARE VOTER: NYC Mayoral Election 2025 Guide (Moms First)
- Podcast: Not Your Safety Net with Reshma Saujani (Hysteria)
- Article: There’s a Reason Women Want To Be Tradwives—It’s Not Old-Fashioned Values (Newsweek)
- Article: Can Hollywood do for paid leave what Congress hasn’t? (The 19th)
Making Headlines
Check out what people are saying about Moms First in the news:
We can’t fix what we don’t face — and the new data around the gender pay gap is a wake-up call. But it’s also a reminder of our collective power. Every audit, every conversation, every mom who refuses to settle for less adds up.
Let’s make sure this backward slide is the spark that propels us forward.
To closing the gap,
Reshma Saujani