Report: “Uncontrolled” gender pay gap didn’t narrow by a single cent from 2021 to 2022

There’s a lot to celebrate this week: The sun sets after 7pm. We made some pies on Pi Day. And March 15 (74 days into the year) was Equal Pay Day—the day that marks on average how far into the new year women must work to earn what men made in 2021. (*Sadly*, we did it, Joe.)

Zoom In: The National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) created Equal Pay Day in 1996 as a public-relations tool to raise awareness about the gender pay gap—the fact that working women’s wages lag behind those of working men’s. Each year, the committee uses census data to calculate how far into the following calendar year women have to work to bring home the same earnings men did in the previous year. 

Is it working? Despite a carrot-and-stick approach, in which some politicians vocally support closing the gap, and hefty legal fees can sometimes loom for companies that underpay women—including a recent $24 million settlement for the US women’s soccer team in February—the national gender pay gap barely budged in 2021, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And, per Payscale’s 2022 State of the Gender Pay Gap Report, which was released this week, the “uncontrolled” gender pay gap didn’t narrow by a single cent between 2021 and 2022: According to their research, women will still make 82 cents to a man’s dollar this year on the whole. (According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, this looks a little different; the BLS reports that overall women earned 83 cents for every dollar earned by a man in 2021.)

Ruth Thomas, pay-equity strategist at Payscale, said in a statement that employers are finally beginning to  take the matter seriously, but warned that many factors could cause the gap to worsen. “Fortunately, employers are finally starting to take pay equity seriously. What’s more, they are thinking beyond just gender and focusing on all unexplainable pay gaps. But with the pressure of rising wage inflation, minimum wage increases, and strong competition for talent, we can expect more pay compression and pay inequity issues to arise.”

Catch up. To study up on the pay gap and pay equity, and learn how HR can assess their own compensation policies for risk, catch up on HR Brew’s previous reporting on the issue.

• What to consider when considering a pay equity analysis
• Pay-equity reviews pay off, research suggests
• Women outnumber men in HR, but a new survey suggests a gender pay gap still exists
• What counts as pay transparency? Depends on who you ask

Nicole Neri, regional administrator for the Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau, envisions a day when Equal Pay Day can fall earlier in the calendar year, possibly as early as December 31.

“Seventy-four extra days of the blaring alarm clock and the delayed morning bus before we are compensated equally with men—are not conditions we have to accept, that we must not resign ourselves to unfairness simply because it’s so typical,” Neri wrote in an editorial for PennLive. “Instead, we can imagine a post-pandemic recovery that is truly equitable, and where Equal Pay Day is Dec. 31.”—SV

Do you work in HR or have information about your HR department we should know? Email [email protected] or DM @SusannaVogel1 on Twitter. For completely confidential conversations, ask Susanna for her number on Signal.