Goldman Sachs says women and minorities earn 99% of male pay median

Goldman Sachs is using its pay-equity statement to draw a narrow line between fairness and sameness. The firm says women globally earned 99% of the median pay for men in its 2023 compensation review, while racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. also earned 99% of the median pay for white employees. Just as important for anyone trying to understand how pay is actually set, Goldman says Legal and Human Resources, with support from a third-party labor economist, reviewed compensation using role, tenure, location and impact before finalizing decisions.

That detail matters because it tells employees what Goldman says it compares when it decides pay, bonuses and adjustments: like with like, not just title against title. For an analyst in New York, a vice president in London, or an associate whose book of work has expanded faster than a peer’s, the statement implies that geography, time in seat and measured contribution all feed into the outcome. What it does not show is the underlying spread of pay by level, team or office, so the public number is a median, not a view into individual outcomes.

Goldman says it will keep publishing gender and race pay-gap data on an annual basis and will include annual EEO-1 demographic information later in its People Strategy Report. The bank’s diversity page also links compensation to broader talent management, listing Asian, Black, Disability, Hispanic/Latinx, LGBTQ+, Veterans, Women’s and Working Parent networks alongside its claim that a diverse workforce enhances its performance-based culture. That ties fairness language to hiring, retention and promotion, even if the statement itself does not publish the internal mechanics managers use during comp season.

The backdrop is a long history of scrutiny. In May 2023, Goldman agreed to pay $215 million to settle a class action alleging bias against women in pay and promotions. The case, filed in 2010 by Cristina Chen-Oster and Shanna Orlich, covered about 2,887 current and former female vice presidents and associates and averted a trial scheduled for June 2023. The settlement also called for independent experts to examine gender pay gaps and performance evaluation processes, underscoring how closely the bank’s compensation systems have been watched.

Goldman has also been trimming parts of its public diversity posture. In February 2025, it dropped the diversity-and-inclusion section from its annual filing, saying it had adjusted for developments in U.S. law. That same month it ended a four-year-old IPO diversity policy that had urged bankers advising companies on U.S. or Western Europe listings to insist on two diverse board members, including one woman. Goldman had said in 2020 it wanted 40% of vice presidents to be women within five years, and CNBC reported in 2023 that 29% of its partners and managing directors were women. The pay-equity statement is one of the firm’s clearest windows into fairness, but its real value is in the process it exposes, and the parts it still leaves to trust.