The Gender Gap in Household Income in the United States Remains Large

The U.S. Census Bureau has released its annual report on income in the United States. According to data in the report, the median income of households headed by a single woman in the United States in 2018 was $45,128. These households made up 18 percent of all family households in the United States. The median income figure shows the point where half of all families earn below this level and half earn above this level.

For households headed by a single man in 2018, the median income figure was $61,518. For married-couple families, the median income was $93,684. Thus, the median income level for family households headed by a single woman was 73.3 percent of the median income for family households headed by a single man and 48.2 percent of the median income of married-couple families.

The good news is that the still very wide gender gap in median household income narrowed a bit from 2017 to 2018.

For single women living alone, the median income in 2018 was $32,007. For single men living alone, the median income was $45,754. Thus, single women had a median income of 70 percent of the median income of single men.

For year-round, full-time workers in 2018, women had median earnings of $45,097. This was 81.6 percent of the median earnings of male year-round, full-time workers.