President Attacks Gender Inequality With Executive Action


President Obama marked the seven year anniversary of the signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act by taking several executive actions to fix gender pay issues and create equality. According to President Obama, these actions will:

“…advance equal pay for all workers and to further empower working families.”

Actions President Obama took today included:

  • Increased the power of the Equal Employment Equality Commission to collect more payroll data. The increased data collection will allow greater enforcement of equal pay laws.
  • Create a 2016 White House Summit on Gender Equality. Political, business, and community leaders will gather to discuss strategies for attacking pay discrimination and increasing opportunities for all Americans.
  • The White House issued a report titled The Gender Pay Gap on the Anniversary of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which examines the causes for the pay gap, and the best plan to attack and fix it. Overall benefit to the economy is also discussed.
  • The President called on Congress to pass legislation on gender inequality.

January 29th marked the anniversary of the President’s signing of the Lilly Ledbatter Act. The Lilly Ledbetter Act is a law which makes it easier for Americans to fight for better wages, and easier to challenge discrimination in the workplace, especially in regards to pay inequality.

Lily Ledbatter is a mother of two, who worked for 20 years at Good Year Tire. She discovered that she had been paid over 70% less then men in the same jobs over the same period of time. She sued her employer for discrimination, but in 2007 the republican dominated Supreme Court through her case out on a technicality.

President Obama used her case as the basis for his Fair Pay Act, which he signed into law in 2009.

H/T Buzzfeed

Featured image by wikipedia available under Public Domain.

Frank Casale is writer, academic, and investigator of all things odd.