On Friday, President Obama celebrated the seventh anniversary of signing the Lilly Ledbetter Act into law. That piece of legislation extended the statute of limitations for equal-pay lawsuits involving discrimination. Obama’s seen some progress, but he’s ready to beef things up with further action. Barry O. is getting bold during his last year of presidency, and he hit the post-holidays ground running with his executive gun control measures, which he pushed through without legislative approval. Obama is tired of the congressional dragging of feet on that hot-button issue, so he took matters into his own hands while not exceeding his own authority.
Obama’s extending the same tactic for equal pay rights, and he noted familiar statistics in this address. He ran down the “$0.79 for every $1.00” figure that is a sad reality in many industries and workplaces. He further elaborated on how that number shrinks further for women of color and Latino women. Obama wants to quash the practice of people doing the same job for different pay, and he summarized his plan:
“Today, we’re proposing to collect and report pay data by race, ethnicity, and gender from businesses with 100 employees or more. And the goal is to help businesses who are trying to do the right thing like the ones here today to get a clear picture of how they can ensure their employees are being treated equally.”
Once again, Obama urged Congress to not only embrace these measures, but also take their own action. He’s asking them to finally pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which was introduced in April 2014. The act would grant women several protections and also allow them to sue for punitive damages based upon discrimination. The New York Times quotes Jenny Yang (the chairwoman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) as saying pay discrimination often runs “undetected” because employers don’t have a grasp on their own data. So, the reporting process would force companies to examine patterns within their own companies.
This concludes another segment of Obama giving no f*cks about what Congress thinks. Paul Ryan is probably making this face right now.
(Via WhiteHouse.gov & New York Times)