Equal Pay Day is a sobering reminder of the gender inequality in America. April 2, the first Equal Pay Day of the year is significant because it marks how far into the CURRENT calendar year a woman must work to earn what a man earned during the LAST calendar year. Stated another way, a woman must work 15 months to match what a man makes in 12 months. For women of color, it’s much worse. The impact of pay inequality is not merely a theoretical debate of social consciousness; it has serious consequences. In the International community, the movement goes beyond mere fairness and there is a push to recognize pay equity as a human right’s issue.
California leads the way in the national pay equity movement. In 2016, then Governor Brown signed into legislation the most progressive law to combat pay inequality—SB 358. This set into motion a series of additional laws intended to further eliminate pay inequality by gender and race. To ensure effectiveness, the CA Equal Pay Taskforce was assembled in 2016 with a select group of experts to develop a knowledge base and tools to assist employers and employees alike.
Biddle Consulting Group’s (BCG) compensation expert, Dr. Dan Kuang, was selected and has served as a Taskforce member since its inception. Dr. Kuang is particularly proud of the Taskforce’s accomplishment, “When you pull together a group of really smart and passionate pay equity experts—lawyers, academicians, unions, etc.—and you give them three years, the outcome is unavoidably awesome.”
Indeed, through the culmination of three years of hard work, the Taskforce has developed an impressive body of knowledge and tools. On April 2, 2019, Equal Pay Day, the taskforce will formally publish the following wealth of research and findings, along with open sources tools: https://women.ca.gov/californiapayequity/
At BCG, every day is a devotion to reducing and eliminating the need for an Equal Pay Day. Dr. Kuang and the BCG team work diligently to assist employers to eliminate pay inequality. Annually, BCG investigates hundreds-of-thousands of datapoints with a sharp focus on unexplained pay gaps to help clients eliminate pay inequality. Not only do we bring our clients into compliance with OFCCP and EEOC requirements, we endeavor and aspire to support greater social equity in the workplace.
In observance of Equal Pay Day, here are some important stats to absorb (stats from nationalpartnership.org):
- While California has the strongest equal pay laws, women in California still lose a combined total of $78.6 billion each year because of the wage gap.
- If the wage gap were closed in CA, women could pay for 9.5 more months of child care, approximately 48 weeks of food for her family, and more than 3 additional months of mortgage and utility payments.
- Women in the U.S. lose a combined total of 900 BILLION each year because of the wage gap.
- If the wage gap were eliminated, women in the U.S. could pay for 13 more months of child care, 10 more months of rent, or pay off their student loan debt in just under three years.
If you have questions regarding pay equity and/or want more information on what you can do to reduce and eliminate pay inequality, feel free to contact us at staff@biddle.com.