Last week we sent out an April Fool’s email with the subject line “Women Achieve Pay Equity With Men!” The next day we celebrated Equal Pay Day around the world.

At Head First Development we take gender equality very seriously, but we wanted to bring awareness in a light-hearted manner. So we asked our mailing list to imagine a world where everyone is seen as equals, and men and women get paid the same for their work. We included a fake news article that celebrated the achievement of pay equity between men and women.

But in reality, the world is not there yet…

The pay gap between men and women in the U.S. actually INCREASED from 2017-2018 according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

Take a look at the chart below which shows the Median weekly earnings and gender earnings ratio for full-time workers, 16 and older by race/ethnic background in both 2017 and 2018. Notice the differences. The pay gap widens in almost every single category from 2017 to 2018.