Today’s Equal Pay Day. Women and men still disagree about who has more economic opportunities

Most working women in the U.S. believe they are disadvantaged when it comes to earning competitive wages, but many men hold a different view, according to a new AP-NORC poll.

Equal pay emerged as a major source of concern for working women in the poll and an area where men and women are far apart in their perception of gender equity.

Most women who are employed full-time — about 6 in 10 — say men have more opportunities when it comes to earning competitive wages, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, while about one-third think neither gender has an advantage. About 3 in 10 employed women say they have personally experienced wage discrimination because of their gender.

Men who are employed full-time are more divided: About 4 in 10 believe men have an advantage when it comes to wages, while about half think both genders have about the same opportunities and about 1 in 10 say women have more opportunities. Just about 1 in 10 men say they have personally experienced wage discrimination because of their gender.

The survey also found that a majority of employed women say the amount of money they get paid is a “major” source of stress in their life right now, compared to about 4 in 10 employed men.

The findings come at a time when men’s earnings are rising faster than women’s, and the gender wage gap has widened for two years in a row, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Reflecting that shift, Equal Pay Day — which symbolizes how many more days into the year women have to work for their earnings to catch up with men — was Thursday, falling a day later than in 2025. That was still 16 days earlier than the first Equal Pay Day on April 11, 1996, when women earned about 75 cents for every dollar earned by men.

The country is deeply divided over how to confront gender pay........

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