The real wage gap for women

Women don't earn 80% of what men earn. The true number is closer to 50%.

Driving the news: A new report from the Institute for Women's Policy Research looks at how much money women actually earned, in aggregate, over three different 15-year time periods. While men's incomes were largely unchanged over the past 50 years, and women's rose significantly, women are still only halfway to equality.

• Women make less money than men when they are earning — and they're also far more likely to be earning nothing at all. 43% of women have had zero income in at least one of the past 15 years. That's twice the rate of men.

Why it matters: A new IMF study concludes that as women find it easier to enter the workforce, national economic growth improves, and even male incomes go up.

Go deeper: The geographical wage gap has stopped closing