Philly women make 89 cents for every dollar men make, new report finds
The report from the Forum of Executive Women showed the pay gap for women of color is even worse.
Women working in Philadelphia continue to make less than their male counterparts, according to a new report from the Forum of Executive Women.
While the gender pay gap in the city narrowed between 2015 and 2024, women in the local workforce still earn on average about 89 cents for every dollar men make, according to the organization’s annual report, citing Philly-specific research from the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia.
And the pay gap is worse for women of color, the report found.
“Persistent pay gaps do more than reduce annual income,” Meghan Pierce, forum president and CEO, wrote in the report. “They affect lifetime earnings, retirement security, access to capital, business formation, and the generational wealth of women and their families.”
“Pay gaps impact who leads, who invests, and who builds lasting economic power in our region.”
» READ MORE: Philly has a fairly small gender pay gap. It looks like equity, but it’s really low wages.
The gender pay gap is narrower in Philadelphia than the national average, which is roughly the same as it was in 2010. Across the country, women earn on average 81 cents for every dollar made by men, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning nonprofit think tank.
Because of the gap, working women in the U.S. collectively lose about $1.7 trillion in wages each year, according to the forum report, and each woman loses about $500,000 on average during their career.
While the gender pay gap is smaller in Philadelphia, racial disparities persist.
Compared to non-Hispanic white men, white women in Philadelphia earn 94 cents on the dollar, the report found, while Black women earn 64 cents, and Hispanic and Latina women earn 57 cents.
Women in the city also remain concentrated in lower-earning professions, making up 76% of healthcare workers and 66% of education workers, two sectors where the median annual earnings was below $60,000, according to the report, titled “The Philadelphia Paradox.”
While a pay gap persists for local women at every education level, some industries have narrowed the gap more than others in recent years, the report found: Finance, retail, and real estate saw their gender pay gaps narrow, while the gap widened in arts, utilities, and construction.
When it comes to Philadelphia’s gender pay disparity, the report concluded: “Progress is real, but closing the remaining gap requires addressing the structures that determine who enters higher-paying fields, who advances within them, and who benefits from the systems that shape long-term economic security.”
