【Glori-Anne Gilbert Archives】

The Glori-Anne Gilbert Archivesgender wage gap is still bad. Really, really bad.

But in news of incremental progress, women are finally earning more than 80 cents to their male peers' dollar. Specifically, women are making 80.5 cents on the dollar, the Census Bureau said this week.

The bump above 80 cents is the first statistically significant annual increase the gender pay gap has seen since 2007.

The median female worker working a full-time, year-round job made 80.5 cents to the dollar in 2016. The year before, the Census Bureau measured the wage gap at 79.6 cents to the dollar. People have been rounding up to 80 cents for a while, but only now is it actually, technically true.

Not all women are making 80.5 cents to the dollar, though. The Census Bureau didn't break down the pay gap by race in its report. But black women earn roughly 67 cents for on the dollar and Hispanic women earn about 60 cents. 

The 0.9 percent increase in women's wages sounds small—and it is—but it's the best we've seen in a decade.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration just scrapped a federal rule that required large companies to report by race and gender how much they pay their workers.

Not too promising for the next 0.9 percent improvement.

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