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What I've Been Reading This Week: Equal Pay Edition


On Tuesday, the New Hampshire primaries occurred.  After watching a few of the speeches after the results were announced, several candidates (Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders) discussed the importance of equal pay in the workplace for men and women.  As well, at the Democratic debate last night, Clinton again advocated for equal pay in her opening remarks. Given that this could become a hot button issue in the weeks and months ahead (along with minimum wage), I thought this would be a good time to dedicate the post to the topic.

As always, below are a few articles that caught my eye this week.



Late last month, President Obama signed two executive actions that will require companies with 100 or more employees to report to the government how much they pay their employees, broken down by race, gender, and ethnicity.  The White House published a "Fact Sheet" on the executive actions for those interested as well.  Unsurprisingly, critics have argued that the President should have avoided taking executive action and instead gone through Congress.  Regardless of where you stand on the matter, the President has made clear that he views equal pay as an important issue...and one that he is not hesitant to address when given the chance.



Recently, Massachusetts took steps to strengthen the Equal Pay Act in the state in an effort to further close the wage gap between male and female workers.  Under the new legislation, the term "comparable work" was strengthened within the Massachusetts Equal Pay Act to ensure comparable work is comparable in pay.  The legislation is somewhat expansive (and worth a full read for those interested) but it is important to note that under the bill, employers are prohibited from banning employees from disclosing information about their own wages or other employees' wages.  A ban on employees discussing wages is often one way to "chill" employee knowledge of pay discrimination practices in the workplace.  Interesting to see this legislation taking steps to prevent that.



The 7th Anniversary of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was back on January 29th and Pennsylvania has marked the occasion with a continued push to amend its Equal Pay Act.  As of this point, at least three different bills have been introduced to strengthen the Pennsylvania Equal Pay Act.  While Pennsylvania's equal pay law has been in place since 1959, none of the proposed bills has yet to pass.  With candidates running for president making equal pay a talking point on the campaign trail, this may just be the year that states such as Pennsylvania find the support to strengthen equal pay laws at the state level.  Stay tuned.

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