Obama Moves to Expand Rules Aimed at Closing Gender Pay Gap

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. @POTUS just announced new actions to advance #EqualPay. Here's what you need to know: https://t.co/8UoDjaKAtg https://t.co/xrv8a20mKl
- The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 29, 2016

Transcript of tweet video: "So today we are taking one more step in the right direction. We are propositioning to collect pay data by race, ethnicity and gender from businesses with 100 employees or more and the goal is two help businesses who are trying to do the right thing to get a clear picture on how they can insure their employees are being treated equal. A better picture of the data will also help us in enforcing existing equal pay laws. We need to make sure women are not penalized or held back simply for starting a family, guys- we are responsible for the family thing too (watch the video, it's funny) and their are already doing more work in getting that thing going, they shouldn't be penalized twice or three times."

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Seven years ago today, President Obama signed into law his first piece of legislation as President: the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which empowered women to recover wages lost to pay discrimination. While the gender pay gap has narrowed slightly over the past two years, there is much more work to be done to ensure fair pay for all. Today, the median wage of a woman working full-time year-round in the United States is about $39,600-only 79 percent of a man’s median earnings of $50,400.

Today, the President is highlighting several additional actions that his Administration is taking to advance equal pay for all workers and further empower working families:

-The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), in partnership with the Department of Labor, is publishing a proposal to annually collect summary pay data by gender, race, and ethnicity from businesses with 100 or more employees. The proposal would cover over 63 million employees. This step - stemming from a recommendation of the President’s Equal Pay Task Force and a Presidential Memorandum issued in April 2014 - will help focus public enforcement of our equal pay laws and provide better insight into discriminatory pay practices across industries and occupations. It expands on and replaces an earlier plan by the Department of Labor to collect similar information from federal contractors.

-The President is renewing his call to Congress to take up and pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, commonsense legislation that would give women additional tools to fight pay discrimination.

-The Council of Economic Advisers is releasing an issue brief, the "Gender Pay Gap on the Anniversary of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act," that explores the state of the gender wage gap, the factors that influence it, and policies put forward by this Administration that can help address it.

-The White House will host a summit on "The United State of Women" on May 23rd that will create an opportunity to mark the progress made on behalf of women and girls domestically and internationally over the course of this Administration and to discuss solutions to the challenges they still face.

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President Obama on Friday moved to require companies to report to the federal government what they pay employees by race, gender and ethnicity, part of his push to crack down on firms that pay women less for doing the same work as men.

“Women are not getting the fair shot that we believe every single American deserves,” Mr. Obama said in announcing the proposal, timed to coincide with the seventh anniversary of his signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which makes it easier for people to challenge discriminatory pay. “What kind of example does paying women less set for our sons and daughters?”

The new rules, Mr. Obama’s latest bid to use his executive power to address a priority of his that Congress has resisted acting on, would mandate that companies with 100 employees or more include salary information on a form they already submit annually that reports employees’ sex, age and job groups.

“Too often, pay discrimination goes undetected because of a lack of accurate information about what people are paid,” said Jenny Yang, the chairwoman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which will publish the proposed regulation jointly with the Department of Labor. “We will be using the information that we’re collecting as one piece of information that can inform our investigations.”

The requirement would expand on an executive order Mr. Obama issued nearly two years ago that called for federal contractors to submit salary information for women and men. Ms. Yang said the rules would be completed in September, with the first reports due a year later.

“Bridging the stubborn pay gap between men and women in the work force has proven to be very challenging,” said Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, noting that the median wage for women amounts to 79 percent of that for men. “We have seen progress, but it isn’t enough.”

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

Marc Benioff, the chief executive of Salesforce.com, whom the White House enlisted to help make its case for the rules, said that while he “never intended” to pay women less than men, he had discovered that his company was doing so after two female employees approached him about it.

“We’re never going to solve this issue of pay inequality if C.E.O.s like myself and others continue to turn a blind eye to what’s happening in their own corporations,” Mr. Benioff said in a conference call organized by the White House, adding that he was spending $3 million to close the pay gap at his firm.

Mr. Obama on Friday also renewed his call for Congress to pass a measure allowing women to sue for punitive damages for pay discrimination. Republicans have repeatedly blocked such legislation, arguing that it would lead to frivolous lawsuits.

Republicans have sharply criticized Mr. Obama’s moves on pay equity, saying that gender discrimination is already illegal and that additional steps are not necessary.

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