The reason for the good news announcement is that new data released by the US Census Bureau show that gender pay gap for full-time, full-year workers is the smallest on record. American women are now earning 77% of the income of men. This gap has fallen for the last two years, after increasing from 2002 to 2003
Here is the bad news. The reduction in the gap is purely down to the fact that while both men's and women's earnings falling over the last few years the former's incomes has fallen more. Funnily enough, the Department of Labor failed to mention that.
Definitely a case of the chocolate ration being increased...