ALBANY — Equal Pay Day symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year, highlighting that women are often paid less than their male colleagues. The disparity remains “one of the foremost challenges” facing the labor market across the state and nation, Gov. Kathy Hochul contended […]
ALBANY — Equal Pay Day symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year, highlighting that women are often paid less than their male colleagues.
The disparity remains “one of the foremost challenges” facing the labor market across the state and nation, Gov. Kathy Hochul contended in a March 25 announcement.
The New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL) recently analyzed newly available data from 2023 and found that women working full-time, year-round in New York State were paid 87.3 cents for every dollar that men were paid. New York’s gender-wage gap is “narrow” compared to the national average of 81.1 cents per dollar. New York had the third smallest wage gap among states in the nation, behind Vermont and Rhode Island, per the governor’s office.
To put these numbers another way, a woman earning the median income in New York State ($62,111) earned $9,057 less than her male counterpart in 2023. If this wage gap were to remain unchanged, she would earn $362,280 less than a man earning the median wage over the course of a 40-year career.
Child-care obligations remain a “persistent” contributing factor to the gender-wage gap, Hochul’s office contends. In her 2025 State of the State Address and fiscal year 2026 state budget proposal, the governor prioritized a number of family-focused initiatives designed to create a “more equitable” labor market.
The establishment of the New York Coalition for Child Care, the creation of a child care substitute pool, and a
$100 million child-care construction fund to build new and renovate existing childcare facilities are all part of Hochul’s multi-year effort to move the state closer to achieving universal child care. She said that’s an “essential step” to ensure the full and equal participation of women in the workforce.
Under Hochul, New York State has spent more than $7 billion to expand child-care accessibility. The governor is also proposing an expansion of the state’s child tax credit, impacting more than 1.5 million families and representing the “single largest boost” to the state’s child tax credit in history, Hochul’s office said.
The governor on March 25 recognized Equal Pay Day, marking the ongoing struggle against the gender wage gap and pledging to continue the fight for equal pay for all workers in the state.
“Women are too often the first to care for a child or an aging parent, sacrificing their own financial security in the process and in New York we refuse to accept this as the status quo,” Hochul stipulated in the announcement.
