New Census numbers indicate that the gender pay gap narrowed substantially in 2025. However, earlier this year, another government agency reported that the gap grew in 2025. Which is correct?

According to figures the Census Bureau released Tuesday, women earned 83.9 cents for every dollar men earned in 2025. That’s up from 80.6 cents in 2024. And that puts the gender pay gap (the median difference between men and women’s pay) at 16.1 cents per dollar, down from 19.4 cents in 2024 and nearly matching its all-time low of 16 cents in 2022.

That sounds like progress for women. However, in January, another government agency, the Bureau of Labor Statistics , reported that the gender gap had widened in 2025. Its figures showed that women earned 82.1 cents for every dollar men earned. Unlike the Census data, this marked a decrease from 82.7 cents in 2024. So, according to the BLS, the gender pay gap was 17.9 cents per dollar in 2025.

The two organizations reported different numbers because they measure earnings differently and include different groups of workers. The Census measures annual earnings among people who worked full-time, year-round. BLS measures weekly earnings among full-time workers, including those who work only part of the year. If someone transitions to full-time work halfway through the year, BLS could include them, but the Census would exclude them.

Another major distinction is that the Census includes self-employed workers, while the BLS pay gap numbers exclude them. If self-employed women do particularly well one year, then that could contribute to differences as well.

The two surveys also use different data collection methods, which may contribute to slightly different results. BLS combines monthly surveys of about 15,000 households throughout the year, while the Census surveys about 89,000 households each spring about the previous year’s income.

There is one additional complication. Due to the government shutdown in 2025, BLS collected only 11 months of data last year, which may make year-to-year comparisons difficult even within the BLS numbers.

Which Gender Pay Gap Number Should We Use?

Neither agency’s gender pay gap number is incorrect. They measure earnings differently, and both measures are commonly cited in analyses and news reports. However, one should use caution when trying to interpret too much from one year’s gender pay gap number. Whether from the BLS or the Census, the reported gender pay gap fluctuates from year to year, so it’s generally more useful to look at longer-term trends. The following table illustrates just how much these numbers fluctuate from year to year.

Women’s Earnings For Every Dollar Men Earned

(Data from the Census Bureau Table 12 and Bureau of Labor Statistics )

The Gap Is Narrowing, But More Slowly For Some

Historically, according to the Census , women closed the gender pay gap to 60 cents for every dollar earned by men for the first time in 1976, to 70 cents in 1990, and to 80 cents in 2016. Nearly a decade later, the two federal measures suggest women’s earnings are roughly between 82 and 84 cents on the dollar compared to men. The gap has narrowed considerably over the past half-century, but progress has been slow.

And even as the overall gender pay gap improves, substantial disparities remain. Focusing on one number that encompasses all women can hide these disparities. For example, Census data show that Black women earned 68 cents for every dollar earned by white men in 2022. By 2025, that number had fallen to 64 cents for every dollar. BLS data show a similar decline from 71.2 cents per dollar in 2022 to 69.6 cents in 2025.

Gender Pay Gap May Be An Underestimate

In addition, the current calculation method used by both agencies may underestimate the true gender gap for all women. Both the Census and the BLS use medians rather than mean averages. The median captures the earnings of the typical worker, but it doesn’t reflect gender differences in salary among the highest earners.

For review, the median is the middle number when you list earnings from lowest to highest. For example, consider the following two sets of salaries: $50, $100 and $120 and $50, $100 and $1,000,000. Both have the same median of $100, even though one set includes a million-dollar salary.

Using the median can understate the full extent of the gender pay gap, because it gives little weight to exceptionally high salaries, which are disproportionately earned by men. In one analysis, using mean averages instead of medians revealed a gender pay gap five percentage points larger.

As for 2025, the Census and BLS figures may disagree about whether the gender pay gap widened or narrowed, but the long-term trend is clear. Women are making substantial progress, but still have a long way to go to reach equality. And the gains have not been shared equally among all women.