Women Are Being Shut Out of the Workforce Like Never Before
Men joined the labor force at three times the rate of women last year, underscoring a gender-based jobs crisis that is escalating across America.
Men joined the U.S. labor force at three times the rate of women last year, underscoring a gender-based jobs crisis that is escalating across America and reversing fragile progress made in previous years toward economic equality.
Official data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released on Friday shows that 81,000 people aged 20 and over left the labor force last month, meaning that they are now neither working nor looking for work. According to an analysis done by the National Women’s Law Center, a non-profit, shockingly, most of those withdrawing were women. In December, for instance, 91,000 women aged 20 and over left the labor force compared with 10,000 men aged 20 and over who joined the labor force that month.
Overall, that means that last year, among those 20 and over, women in the labor force increased by a mere 184,000, while men increased by 572,000—more than three times as many. The NWLC also pointed out that women’s gains in 2025 were a mere fraction of the gains women had made in previous years.
Jasmine Tucker, vice president for research at NWLC, attributed these shocking figures to government policies that have made it more difficult for women to balance paid labor with caregiving responsibilities. “The Trump administration spent 2025 undermining workplace protections and weakening caregiving support that helps women enter and remain in the labor force,” she said. Think: Slashing women from federal positions and undermining DEI programs, to name just a few. “It is clear that this administration doesn’t value women’s work or believe that a woman’s place is at work.”
The December data also show that the unemployment rate for Black women, in particular, continues to climb at a steady clip, rising from 7.1% in November to 7.3% in December. The unemployment rate for Latinas aged 20 and over, meanwhile, also increased from 4.4% in November to 4.5% in December.
Worse, data also shows that the gender pay gap widened in both 2024 and 2023. In 2024 specifically, Census Bureau data showed that the average woman working full time, year-round in the U.S. was paid 81 cents for every dollar paid to the average man. That was down from 83 cents in 2023 and 84 cents in 2022. It was also the first time since the bureau started tracking this data more than half a century ago that it has recorded two consecutive years of decline.
Francesca Donner
