29 Companies Commit to Equal Pay
Our most feminist president has been committed to equal pay for equal work since his first weeks in office, making the Lilly Ledbetter Act the first bill he ever passed into law. Since then, he's advocated for even stricter legislation on equal pay, dispatched his advisors to research how to make workplaces friendlier to women, and hosted a United State of Women Summit. But the job's not over yet.
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On Women's Equality Day, the White House announced that it has secured the participation of 29 new companies in its Equal Pay Pledge. Apple, CVS, Facebook, Target, Visa, Nike, and more have all signed on. The pledge, which Obama announced at the United State of Women Summit in June, mandates that employers:
Commit to commissioning an annual gender pay analysis, company-wide.
Review on-boarding and promotion processes to root out unconscious bias and barriers to advancement for women.
Make equal pay into a pillar of company initiatives.
Engage in a national, private sector-driven conversation about how to close the wage gap all across the country.
"We believe that [equal pay and workplace fairness policies] helps businesses attract the strongest talent possible and that [it] will boost not only individual businesses, but our economy as a whole," says Valerie Jarrett, a senior advisor to President Obama and exactly the kind of woman you'd want on your side in a salary negotiation. Jarrett asserts that voluntary commitments from companies serve not only to motivate their workforces, but to galvanize "our broader economy" around issues of equality in the workplace.
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"It's everything from raising the minimum wage to paid leave to paid sick days to affordable childcare to equal pay," Jarrett says. "That's really the basket of issues [that people care about]. Employers who recognize the importance of investing in their workforce have a more productive workforce, a more efficient workforce, a more loyal workforce, less turnover, and in the private sector, more profitable." That is, everyone wins.
"The private sector leaders...recognize that this issue is important to their bottom line and the success of their businesses," Jarrett says. "And that's how we can ensure that it will be sustainable even after the President leaves office and that's how we measure our success."
The White House can advocate for policies and support them, but what matters most is that companies realize what they stand to gain in embracing them as well. "We are very heartened to see the traction that we've received in a relatively short amount of time by extraordinarily important corporate leaders," Jarrett says. "That validates the research that we have done...and it shows momentum. And that's a lot of what wedo."
