Women’s earnings in NH: Pay gaps and workforce issues

March 26 marks National Women’s Equal Pay Day, the day that represents how far into the new calendar year the median full-time, year-round working woman would need to work to earn what the median full-time, year-round working man earned in the previous year.

Here are several key facts to know about women’s pay across the United States and in New Hampshire:

Granite State women earned 81% of what New Hampshire men were paid

Nationally, women earned about 82% of what men earned in 2024, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. The median income for men working full-time was $66,010, compared to $53,970 for women.

In New Hampshire, women working full-time, year-round earned 81% of what men earned in 2024, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Full-time, year-round working men had median earnings of $75,397, compared to $61,442 for women in the state.

Among the 25 occupational categories included in 2024 data from the American Community Survey, women had higher median earnings than men in only four categories (farming, fishing, and forestry; construction and extraction; transportation; and material moving). The largest pay gaps in median income, in terms of dollar amounts, favored men and were recorded in health diagnosing and treating practitioners ($181,853 vs. $91,258), personal care and service occupations ($80,311 vs. $42,448), and computer and mathematical occupations ($112,669 vs. $86,649).

The gender pay gap is wider for people of color

The pay gap for women of color can be significantly larger than the gap for women overall. Due to data limitations, earnings data for Granite Staters cannot be disaggregated by both race and sex. However, average estimated per capita income differed substantially across racial and ethnic groups in New Hampshire during the 2020-2024 time period. White, non-Hispanic Granite Staters had higher average estimated per capita incomes ($54,326) than individuals identifying as another race not listed in the survey ($40,199), individuals identifying as of two or more races ($36,732), Black or African American Granite Staters ($35,999), Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander residents ($35,237), and Hispanic or Latino Granite Staters of any race ($35,935). The pay gap between white, non-Hispanic residents and Native American and Alaska Native residents was statistically indistinguishable. Asian Granite Staters were the only non-white group with a higher mean annual income ($63,363) than white, non-Hispanic residents.

Nationally, a gender pay gap among full-time, year-round workers existed across all racial and ethnic groups in 2024, including for white, non-Hispanic workers ($75,508 vs. $60,698), Black or African American workers ($53,245 vs. $49,243), Native American and Alaska Native workers ($50,064 vs. $43,690), Asian workers ($90,578 vs. $73,278), Native Hawaiian…