The White House announced executive action Friday requiring companies with 100 employees or more to report to the federal government how much each of their employees are paid according to race, gender, and ethnicity. This transparency aims to eliminate discrimination and close the gender pay gap in America. Data collected in the first phase would be submitted on September 30, 2017.
“The data collection also gives the Labor Department a more powerful tool to do its enforcement work, to ensure that federal contractors comply with fair pay laws and to root out discrimination where it does exist,” said Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports this set of data will pinpoint which careers and industries have the widest pay disparities. On Friday, the White House released a report stating, “the typical woman working full-time full-year earns 21 percent less than the typical man,” and as of today, the U.S. gender wage gap is 2.5 percentage points greater than other industrialized countries.
The order comes exactly seven years to the day President Obama signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which prohibits wage discrimination. Let’s hope we continue moving in the right direction.
