Suzanimal
01-29-2016, 09:14 PM
693102420688121856
“Women are not getting the fair shot that we believe every American deserves,” Barack Obama said on Friday as he outlined new rules to force US companies to disclose how much less they pay women for doing the same jobs as men.
Obama said it was time for tough action to close the gender pay gap. Women still earn just 79 cents to every dollar paid to a man more than 50 years after the passing of the Equal Pay Act designed to stamp out gender pay discrimination.
“We’re talking about folks doing the same job but being paid different,” the president said in a speech in White House. “What kind of example does paying women less set for our sons and daughters?
“The notion that we would somehow be keeping my daughters … any of your daughters out of opportunity, not allowing them to thrive in any field, not allowing them to fully participate in every human endeavor, that’s counterproductive.”
The Obama administration on Friday issued new proposals requiring all companies with at least 100 employees to disclose salaries broken down by gender, race and ethnicity. Obama’s latest executive action would cover all companies with more than 100 employees, representing some 63 million workers.
The plan comes seven years after Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, designed to make it easier for women to bring pay discrimination lawsuits. It was the first bill Obama signed into law and just nine days after he took office.
However, progress towards equal pay has been slow. When the Ledbetter bill was passed, women were paid an average of 77 cents to every dollar earned by a man. Today it is 79 cents. The median wage of full-time working women is $39,600 compared to $50,400 collected by men.
Obama said women from ethnic minorities fare even worse. “The gap is even wider for women of colour. Black women collect 60 cents for every dollar, and Latino women 55 cents for every dollar a white man earns,” he said.
Ledbetter, who became a standard bearer for pay equality after taking Goodyear Tire company to the supreme court following her discovery that she was paid considerably less than all 15 men doing the same job as her, introduced Obama to the White House podium.
“I know we’ll always have a powerful ally in President Obama,” she said. “We owe it to our daughters, our granddaughters and ourselves” to ensure the pay gap issue isn’t forgotten.
The pay data is to be collected by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which currently collects data on the number of employees by sex, race and ethnicity but not how much they are paid. The EEO data has revealed the startling lack of diversity in Silicon Valley firms, with African Americans representing less than 2% of employees at Facebook and Twitter.
“More than 50 years after pay discrimination became illegal it remains a persistent problem for too many Americans,” Jenny Yang, chair of the EEOC, said. “Collecting pay data is a significant step forward in addressing discriminatory pay practices.”
Thomas Perez, the secretary of labor, said:“We can’t know what we don’t know. We can’t deliver on the promise of equal pay unless we have the best, most comprehensive information about what people earn.”
Perez said he hoped companies would take it upon themselves to use the data to “prevent pay discrimination in their workplaces”. But, if they don’t, the data would give his department a “more powerful tool... to root out discrimination where it does exist”.
...
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/29/obama-outlines-rules-for-closing-gender-pay-gap
“Women are not getting the fair shot that we believe every American deserves,” Barack Obama said on Friday as he outlined new rules to force US companies to disclose how much less they pay women for doing the same jobs as men.
Obama said it was time for tough action to close the gender pay gap. Women still earn just 79 cents to every dollar paid to a man more than 50 years after the passing of the Equal Pay Act designed to stamp out gender pay discrimination.
“We’re talking about folks doing the same job but being paid different,” the president said in a speech in White House. “What kind of example does paying women less set for our sons and daughters?
“The notion that we would somehow be keeping my daughters … any of your daughters out of opportunity, not allowing them to thrive in any field, not allowing them to fully participate in every human endeavor, that’s counterproductive.”
The Obama administration on Friday issued new proposals requiring all companies with at least 100 employees to disclose salaries broken down by gender, race and ethnicity. Obama’s latest executive action would cover all companies with more than 100 employees, representing some 63 million workers.
The plan comes seven years after Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, designed to make it easier for women to bring pay discrimination lawsuits. It was the first bill Obama signed into law and just nine days after he took office.
However, progress towards equal pay has been slow. When the Ledbetter bill was passed, women were paid an average of 77 cents to every dollar earned by a man. Today it is 79 cents. The median wage of full-time working women is $39,600 compared to $50,400 collected by men.
Obama said women from ethnic minorities fare even worse. “The gap is even wider for women of colour. Black women collect 60 cents for every dollar, and Latino women 55 cents for every dollar a white man earns,” he said.
Ledbetter, who became a standard bearer for pay equality after taking Goodyear Tire company to the supreme court following her discovery that she was paid considerably less than all 15 men doing the same job as her, introduced Obama to the White House podium.
“I know we’ll always have a powerful ally in President Obama,” she said. “We owe it to our daughters, our granddaughters and ourselves” to ensure the pay gap issue isn’t forgotten.
The pay data is to be collected by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which currently collects data on the number of employees by sex, race and ethnicity but not how much they are paid. The EEO data has revealed the startling lack of diversity in Silicon Valley firms, with African Americans representing less than 2% of employees at Facebook and Twitter.
“More than 50 years after pay discrimination became illegal it remains a persistent problem for too many Americans,” Jenny Yang, chair of the EEOC, said. “Collecting pay data is a significant step forward in addressing discriminatory pay practices.”
Thomas Perez, the secretary of labor, said:“We can’t know what we don’t know. We can’t deliver on the promise of equal pay unless we have the best, most comprehensive information about what people earn.”
Perez said he hoped companies would take it upon themselves to use the data to “prevent pay discrimination in their workplaces”. But, if they don’t, the data would give his department a “more powerful tool... to root out discrimination where it does exist”.
...
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/29/obama-outlines-rules-for-closing-gender-pay-gap