Maryland women started 58% of the new businesses launched in the state since 2019, but they still earn less, own fewer firms that hire employees and participate in the labor force at lower rates than men, according to a first-of-its-kind report released Thursday by the Office of the Comptroller.
The Women and the Economy report, the latest installment in Comptroller Brooke E. Lierman’s State of the Economy series, pairs federal, state and some private data with input from nearly 200 women gathered in nine roundtable discussions across Maryland, the office said.
“Women power Maryland’s economy as workers, business owners, entrepreneurs, leaders, and consumers, yet the data shows that they continue to face barriers that limit their ability to fully participate and prosper,” Lierman said in the release.
A persistent participation and pay gap
The report puts the labor force participation rate at 65% for Maryland women age 16 and older, compared with 73% for men, an 8-point gap. Among workers ages 25 to 64 the rates are 81% and 89%, the same gap. The widest disparities appear among women with limited English proficiency (32 points), those without a high school diploma (23 points) and married women with a young child (22 points for ages 25 to 44).
Wage differences follow a similar pattern. Among workers without a college degree, the report lists median annual wages of $43,000 for women and $57,000 for men; with a bachelor’s degree or higher (ages 25 to 64), the figures are $85,000 and $106,000. The report says the gaps stem partly from women’s concentration in certain industries and occupations, but that they can persist even when men and women hold the same jobs with the same education. Women make up 51.6% of the state’s population and account for 80% of health care employment and 67% of employment in educational services, two of the state’s largest industries by jobs.
Women are starting businesses, but not scaling them as often
On entrepreneurship the picture is mixed. Women-owned firms grew by 42,500, or 17%, since 2019, compared with 33,300, or 10%, for men-owned firms, according to the report. Even so, women own 42% of Maryland firms against 53% for men, and the report says men are more than 2.5 times as likely to own employer firms. It estimates the state would need roughly 50,000 more women-owned businesses to match women’s share of the population.
Federal cuts and Black women
The report devotes particular attention to federal workforce reductions. Black women made up 21% of Maryland’s federal civilian workforce in 2024 while representing 15% of the state’s population, and the Comptroller’s office concludes that recent federal job and spending cuts have likely affected them disproportionately, based on available data and analyses. Maryland lost 29,100 federal jobs between January 2025 and June 2026, more than any state except California, the report says. Black unemployment in Maryland, among the lowest in the nation in late 2023 and early 2024, reached 7.5% in the second quarter of 2026.
That finding carries weight in Southern Maryland, where federal employment is a bedrock of the regional economy. Charles County is the only local jurisdiction the report singles out, noting that an estimated 58% of federal employees living there are Black and that the county has recently surpassed Prince George’s County as the nation’s wealthiest majority-Black county. The report does not break out data for Calvert or St. Mary’s counties. The Chronicle previously reported on Maryland’s slow jobs rebound after the federal cuts.
What the report suggests
The report does not prescribe specific recommendations, but it identifies policy areas that could help women advance: workforce and caregiving supports, equal pay and career advancement, access to capital and government contracting for women-owned businesses, career and technical education pathways into higher-paying fields, and reemployment and entrepreneurship help for women hit hardest by federal changes. The Comptroller’s office has also been publishing economic data regularly, including a quarterly economic dashboard launched in June.
Lierman and other subject-matter experts will discuss the findings in public on Oct. 19 at 2 p.m. in the Louis L. Goldstein Treasury Building Assembly Room in Annapolis; the event is open to the public and the media, and an RSVP is requested. Media contacts listed in the release are Jeremy Ames, 443-336-8162, and Bruce Nilson, 443-254-6153.
The pay question has been reported locally before: the Chronicle’s earlier coverage of Maryland’s gender pay gap for young female graduates found similar disparities early in women’s careers.
