Full-time working women earned a median of $1,076 a week in the third quarter of 2025, compared with $1,333 for men, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, December 10, 2025. That ratio works out to about 80.7 cents per dollar, a figure that has shifted by less than a point across all of 2025.
This analysis publishes information from a federal statistical release; it is not legal or financial advice about any individual paycheck.
What exactly did the BLS release say?
The quarterly Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers release, drawn from the Current Population Survey, reported an overall median of $1,214 a week across roughly 122.6 million full-time wage and salary workers. The prior quarter's release, published July 22, 2025, had put women's median weekly earnings at $1,078, or 81.1 percent of the $1,330 median for men. Two quarters, two decimal points. The gap did not close. It moved.
What the weekly figure does and does not cover?
The BLS series covers full-time wage and salary workers, defined as those usually working 35 hours or more a week. It excludes self-employed women, a group that includes many founders and freelancers, and it does not adjust for occupation, industry, or hours beyond the full-time threshold. That matters because a raw earnings ratio captures both unequal pay for similar work and unequal sorting into higher- and lower-paid roles — two problems with different fixes.
- What it measures: median usual weekly earnings, so half of full-time working women earned less than $1,076.
- What it misses: benefits, bonuses in some cases, self-employment income, and part-time workers, who are disproportionately women.
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Why it matters for women building careers
The quarterly number is the cleanest recurring federal benchmark for the gender pay gap, and it lands in the middle of a wave of state pay-transparency laws that let applicants see advertised ranges before they apply. Read together, they give a working woman two tools: a public baseline for what the typical full-time paycheck looks like, and in a growing number of states, a posted range to test any offer against. When the ratio between men's and women's median weekly pay sits near 81 percent for years at a time, individual negotiation alone is not moving it; the comparison points are what make unequal offers visible.
What comes next in the data?
The BLS publishes the quarterly earnings release roughly three weeks after each quarter ends, and annual averages follow in late winter. The annual 2025 figures will fold four quarters into a single ratio and, because the October 2025 collection period was disrupted by the government shutdown, annual estimates will be built on eleven months of data — a caveat worth carrying into any year-over-year comparison.