“At a time when women are increasingly the breadwinners in our households, paying them less makes it harder for families to cover the necessities like child care or health care, just to pay the bills. It makes it harder for a family to save, harder for families to retire. It means local businesses have customers with less money to spend. So it’s not good for our communities. It’s not good for our families. It’s not good for our businesses. What kind of example does paying women less set for our sons and daughters?” –President Obama, January 29, 2016
This summer, the White House brought together women from around the world for the United State of Women Summit to discuss the progress that has been made on on gender equality issues to date, and to discuss how to tackle the gender inequities that still remain. “In 2016, the typical woman still earns only 79 cents for every dollar a typical man earns. That number decreases to 64 cents for African American women, 59 cents for Native American women, and 54 cents for Latinas. These pay gaps don’t just affect each individual paycheck; over the course of their careers, women miss out on overtime pay, contributions to retirement, their 401(k), and social security. Pay gaps may start small, but they compound and grow when hiring and promotion practices are left unexamined.” (Cecelia Munoz, Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council).
Hence, this past week, President Obama launched the Equal Pay Pledge, which encourages companies across the United States to take action to work toward equal pay to advance diversity and inclusion in the American workplace. The Equal Pay Pledge is is a win-win for women and corporations because a broad perspective and diversity of thought comes only from having a diverse workforce. Women add a much-needed vantage point to the workplace because they reflect the communities that businesses serve daily. Promoting an environment that values diversity and inclusion can only fully be achieved with a commitment to paying all employees equitably.
This past week the Obama administration asked businesses across America to sign this pledge, “which affirms the commitment to pay women equally.” So far 58 of the largest companies in America have signed, including the consortium of: Accenture; Airbnb; BCG; Care.com; CEB; Cisco; Deloitte; Dow; Expedia; EY; Glassdoor; GoDaddy; Jet.com; L’Oréal USA; Mercer; PepsiCo; Pinterest; Rebecca Minkoff; Salesforce; Spotify; Staples; StellaMcCartney.
To Take the Pledge a business will sign and agree that: We applaud the growing number of countries that have already made significant progress in closing their gender wage gap. Despite passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which requires equal pay for equal work, the gender pay gap in the United States persists. Women working full-time earn only 79 percent of men’s wages, and we are committed to taking action individually and collectively to reduce that national pay gap. We believe that businesses must play a critical role in reducing the national pay gap. Towards that end, we commit to conducting an annual company-wide gender pay analysis across occupations; reviewing hiring and promotion processes and procedures to reduce unconscious bias and structural barriers; and embedding equal pay efforts into broader enterprise-wide equity initiatives. We pledge to take these steps as well as identify and promote other best practices that will close the national wage gap to ensure fundamental fairness for all workers.
Please join the Obama administration in working toward pay equality in the workplace for women, as we strive to close the gender wage gap.
Take the pledge here:
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