The Census Bureau released new data Tuesday on the pay gap between men and women, showing a statistically insignificant increase. But the news is better than it might seem.

Women were paid 78 cents for every dollar a man earned last year, up from 77 cents in 2012. The 22-cent pay gap is a record low, down from 40 cents in 1960. (Annualize that and it takes a woman three more months to make what a man does.)

A closer look at the numbers reveals the good news: Within nearly every age group, the pay gap is shrinking even more than the census data shows, said Claudia Goldin, a Harvard University economist and one of the leading scholars on the pay gap.