The American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) collects income data as part of its Graduate Survey Report (see Methods Appendix). It is reasonable to consider that the family physicians in this self-reported sample are in the early part of their career and may be in the early staged of income growth as they progress professionally. Of this group, the plurality (31.5%) earned between $200,000 and $249,999 annually, with just over one-tenth earning at the lower (less than $125,000) and higher ($300,000 or more) ends of the distribution.

Compensation in family medicine has risen over the past decade, while still lagging specialty peers. Less well documented is its variation. Of particular interest is the gap in pay according to race and gender, which has been well documented in other sectors of the U.S. economy. Looking at compensation by demographics illustrates income disparities in this sample of more than 11,000 ABFM Diplomates. It is important to note that because this data was taken from the Graduate Survey Report, which all Diplomates complete upon their third year after residency graduation, years of clinical experience post-residency do not contribute to these income disparities. While nearly 20% of male physicians are in the highest income bracket (>$300,000), only 5.6% of their female colleagues report making as much. Although there are no significant differences in income distribution by degree type, Diplomates who trained abroad (international medical graduates) are more likely than Diplomates who trained in the U.S. or Canada to make over $300,000 (16.6% to 9.5%). Self-reported income tends to be lower for Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander Diplomates than members of other racial groups, and White physicians are slightly more likely (12.9%) to be in the highest income group than Black or African American physicians (11.8%) or Asian physicians (10.6%). We also see that the proportion of highest income earners is slightly greater among those who don’t identify as Hispanic or Latinx (12.5%) than those who do (10.6%).

TABLE 16. Reported Income by Early Career Family Physicians

TABLE: 17. Demographic Distribution of Family Physicians by Income

Our demographic breakdown of self-reported income data does not account for actual practice work hours that may contribute to salary differences and disparities. For instance, full-time employment will result in higher income levels than partial-time employment. Two recent studies have been published using additional ABFM data to account for annual hours worked. One of these studies found a nearly 16% difference in hourly pay between female respondents compared to male respondents (Jabbarpour et. al).³⁸ Other research found that male family physicians had higher hourly wages than female family physicians across all racial/ethnic groups except for Black/African American males – although this group reported more working hours than any other group (Anderson, et. al ).³⁹ Thus, family physician income disparities prevail despite accounting for hours worked.

TABLE 18. Family Physician Mean Income and Hours worked by Gender

TABLE 19. Family Physician Mean Income and Hours Worked by Race/Ethnicity and Gender