The 2024 LGBTQI+ Wage Gap

June 17, 2025, is LGBTQIA+ Equal Pay Awareness Day, a day to raise awareness about the wage gaps faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual people. Yet due to a lack of federally collected data on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics (SOGISC), researchers often have to rely on independent survey data to quantify the experiences of the LGBTQI+ community. This original Center for American Progress analysis shines a light on the income gaps people experience by SOGISC and race. According to data from CAP’s LGBTQI+ Community Survey, the average LGBTQI+ household made just 85 cents for every dollar earned by non-LGBTQI+ households in 2024.

Aggregate data by LGBTQI+ status and race

Over the course of a year, those 15 lost cents add up, amounting to about $12,600 in lost income per year for the average LGBTQI+ household. (see Figure 1) That is more than the average household spends on food and gasoline in an entire year. Notably, LGBTQI+ people are more likely to face discrimination and harassment across every queried environment, including the workplace, which may contribute to some of the income gap. In 2024, approximately a quarter of LGBTQI+ people reported experiencing discrimination in the workplace, compared with 16 percent of non-LGBTQI+ people.

Another contributor to this gap is likely age. The median age of LGBTQI+ survey respondents was 33, compared with 48 for non-LGBTQI+ respondents; and only 7 percent of LGBTQI+ adult respondents were 65 and over, which is statistically significantly lower than the 23 percent of non-LGBTQI+ adults over age 65. Generally, income grows with age until retirement, meaning that if younger, working-age people have a higher propensity to openly report being LGBTQI+, their incomes likely skew lower as a result of these age differences. As previously reported, educational attainment for LGBTQI+ adults is equal to or higher than it is for non-LGBTQI+ adults, suggesting that discrimination and age are more likely to be driving income disparities. While this analysis does not control for age, other research shows that the lower earnings LGBTQI+ people experience follow them into retirement, where older LGBTQI+ individuals face higher rates of poverty than the overall population

With the Trump administration rolling back protections against discrimination and harassment in the workplace, it is likely that this income gap will worsen for most protected classes, including LGBTQI+ people. The intersection of SOGISC and racial demographics further drives up wage gaps for LGBTQI+ households. Among LGBTQI+ people of color, the average household made just 74 cents for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic, non-LGBTQI+ households in 2024.

Looking at gender identity in greater detail, large gaps emerge for women and transgender people. Transgender or nonbinary households made just 70 cents for every dollar made by non-LGBTQI+ households, equating to $24,800 per year in lost income. That lost income is more than the average household spends on rent, food, and gasoline combined over the course of a year. Among LGBTQI+ women-headed households, the gap is even larger, at 52 percent, amounting to nearly $40,000 in annual losses. This is wider than the 75 percent wage gap for all women workers in 2023. It is important to note that CAP’s survey contains household-level data, rather than the individual income data found in the latest 2023 Annual Social and Economic Supplement, which does not contain SOGISC questions.

Detailed disparities by race, gender, and sexual orientation

Detailed cross-sectional data on gender, sexual orientation, and race show a vast difference in household incomes between cisgender heterosexual men and LGBTQI+ people. Across all the groups analyzed, household incomes pale in comparison to those of cisgender heterosexual men. (see Figure 2)  LGBTQI+ women of color and nonbinary people are less likely than other groups analyzed to live in a household earning $100,000 or more per year. LGBTQI+ women overall, including cis and trans women, had equivalent income ratios to cisgender LGBQI+ women, likely owing to the fact that a small fraction of LGBTQI+ women respondents were transgender. Transgender men, meanwhile, had highly dichotomous household incomes: They were the second-most likely of the selected LGBTQI+ subgroups analyzed to have household incomes of less than $30,000 per year while also being the subgroup most likely to make more than $100,000 per year. Nonbinary households were the most likely to make less than $30,000 per year.

While these data are not normalized by household size, to provide some context, across the 48 contiguous states, the federal poverty guideline for a family of four in 2024 was $31,200.

Conclusion

While the data presented in this analysis do not disentangle the many forces behind the wage gap for LGBTQI+ people, what is clear is that the intersecting dynamics of sexism, racism, and discrimination likely play a role in these inequities. Furthermore, the Trump administration has defanged many of the agencies responsible for preventing and addressing these problems in the workplace and enforcing existing nondiscrimination laws. LGBTQI+ people are already being harmed as a result of reduced enforcement against discrimination. Those who have multiple, intersecting marginalized identities experience even more workplace discrimination, tend to have larger disparities in household income, and are undoubtedly going to be the hardest hit by the Trump administration’s actions.

The authors thank Mimla Wardak and Amina Khalique for their research assistance and Caleb Smith, Lily Roberts, and William Roberts for their feedback on an earlier version of this column.

Methodology

This analysis based household LGBTQI+ status on survey respondents’ self-identification of sexual orientation, gender identity, and intersex characteristics. Due to sample size constraints, the authors did not present the household income breakouts for transgender people of color nor specific racial and ethnic groups.