The Pay Gap Is Getting Worse. Here's the Math — and the Fix.
The gender wage gap is often described as a problem that's slowly, steadily improving. The 2025 data would like a word. Women working full-time earn approximately 82 to 84 cents for every dollar earned by men — and men's earnings have been growing at 3.7% annually while women's have been flat. The gap is not closing. It is actively widening.
And that's just the average. Break it down by race and the numbers become brutal. Latina women earn 58 cents per dollar earned by white men — a gap that translates to roughly $33,620 in lost earnings every year. Black women earn 65 cents. Native American women, 58 cents. For a Black woman working full-time in Washington, D.C., the absolute annual loss compared to a white male peer reaches $58,278. That's not a gap. It's a systematic transfer of wealth.
For Latina and Black women, the annual earnings gap represents several years of mortgage payments — or the entire cost of a child's college education. Every single year.
Here's the mechanism that keeps it self-perpetuating: the Equal Pay Act allows employers to justify lower pay based on "any factor other than sex" — including prior salary history. Since women are routinely underpaid at previous jobs, new employers can legally anchor the next salary to the last injustice. The discrimination compounds, legally, indefinitely.
The ERA breaks this cycle. Under strict constitutional scrutiny, the burden of proof shifts: instead of a woman proving discrimination, the employer must prove any pay disparity serves a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve it. Courts apply exactly this standard to racial pay discrimination. The ERA would require it for sex. Equal pay isn't just a women's issue — in households where women are the primary earner, now more than 40% of American families, it's a family economic issue.
Women, The Economy and The ERA: Part 1 of 4
The Pay Gap Is Getting Worse. Here's the Math — and the Fix.
You're Penalized for Having a Baby. The Constitution Allows It.
Your Union Card Is the Best Pay-Equity Tool in America. For Now.
Old Age Is Expensive. For Women, It's a Crisis the Constitution Permits.
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The ERA is the constitutional fix the Equal Pay Act was never allowed to be. Sign at Sign4ERA.org.