At DASIL, we have many data visualizations that point at income inequality. We’ve also addressed some related issues in our blog posts. However, one demographic group has been left out of our conversations surrounding income inequality: millennials.
In a study done by Status of Women in the United States, they found that millennial women face a smaller wage gap than that between all men and women. Millennial women were also found to be somewhat more likely to work in finance and management than men.
Additionally, female millennials are 33% more likely than men to obtain a college degree by the age of 27.
While these are important strides, it does not mean that there is no longer a reason to be concerned about wage gaps. Here are some graphs created from our Mean Income by Age, Race, and Gender visualization that can help us explore the issue:
It’s clear that the gap between men and women aged 25-34 (the approximate age of millennials at the end of this graph) is closing.
But what happens if we examine the gap by race and gender?
There are clearly still huge gaps in income between race and gender. Black and Hispanic men earn an average income that is nearly equivalent to White women. Black and Hispanic women earn the least—an average of about $25,000 a year in 2013.
In fact, the millennial “one percent” is mostly white and male. Even though women are closing in on the wage and education gap, there is still a profound inequality in income by race.