President Obama Issues New Action to Close the Gender Pay Gap

The Obama administration on Friday said it was directing all businesses with more than 100 employees to submit detailed pay data by gender, race and ethnicity in an effort to find firms that are “unlawfully shortchanging workers”. The compensation data would be an addition to employment information companies are already required to submit annually on race and gender-the EEOC says that the aggregate data would be published to help employers “facilitate voluntary compliance”.

The first bill President Obama ever signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act – a basic but crucial protection for women who have been paid less than their male colleagues for years but didn’t know it.

Jenny Yang, current head of the EEOC, said that looking at the proposal’s current timeline, she expects the first reports would be due to her committee by September 30, 2017.

According to The New York Times, the rules are part of an executive action by the Obama administration aimed at getting large companies to pay everyone who does the same job equally, especially women.

The proposal would not require the disclosure of specific salaries of individual employees, but it would seek collect data on pay ranges and hours worked. The EEOC and the president are also calling on Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, a measure the Republican-controlled Congress has repeatedly blocked. Two female employees asked him to investigated possible pay inequality, and he was shocked to find that women were being paid less – for no real reason – than men were.

White House officials said the requirement was meant to bolster the government’s ability to penalize companies that engage in pay discrimination and to encourage businesses to police themselves better and correct disparities.

Along with the proposed rule, Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to the president, said the White House will host a Summit on “The United State of Women” on May 23 to look back at the progress that’s been made for women and girls in the America and around the world. In other words, a third of the gender wage gap couldn’t be explained by other factors, and likely had something to do with bias or discrimination. The Supreme Court said her claim was invalid because she hadn’t filed it within 180 days of her last paycheck.

“It’s been 7 years since the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act became law”.

“I may have lost my personal battle, but I will not lose this war”, Ledbetter said Friday. In April 2014, to celebrate Equal Pay Day, he signed two executive actions to recognize the full equality of women and increase equity for all in the workplace.