Dodd’s Pay Equity Bill passes Assembly

A gender pay equity bill authored by Assemblymember Bill Dodd (D-Sonoma Valley) was passed by the state Assembly on Wednesday with bipartisan support. The legislation would require companies that contract with the state to have policies in place to help ensure gender pay equity, and to provide data on employee income by gender and race to document compliance.

“We need to ensure people aren’t paid less for doing the same job simply because of their gender or the color of their skin,” Dodd said.

The bill, which is co-authored by several legislators, including Senator Lois Wolk and Assemblymember Susan Bonilla, will now move on to the Senate.

“The advancement of gender pay equity has been overlooked for too long,” he said. “This legislation takes a step towards closing the gender pay gap, and I will continue pushing for positive change.”

Dodd reported that the gender pay gap amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime, and in 2013, the pay gap between men and women averaged nearly $11,000 annually in lost income.

Full-time working women in the U.S. have continued to earn an average of just 77 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts over the last decade. Dodd said the disparity is even greater for women of color, and numerous studies have found a gap persists even when controlling for factors like education and career field.

“While the gender pay gap is a problem for women, it’s also a problem for our entire society,” Dodd said. If we fail to bring change, working women and families will continue to be shortchanged,” Dodd said. “Hard working Californians and future generations, including my granddaughters, need us to step up.”

Gender Pay Equity – Are We There Yet?

By Assemblymember Bill Dodd

It’s graduation season, and many young people are celebrating their accomplishments and preparing for the next chapter in their lives. As I reflect on the promise of this generation and all they will accomplish, I also find myself concerned with the state they are inheriting. Pay equity is one of the fundamental issues we must address to provide our children a brighter future and a better state to call home.

Our state often leads the nation in social change. However, one area that has been greatly overlooked has been the promotion of equal pay for women. Through no fault of their own, women across the nation over the past decade have continued to earn just 77 cents for every dollar a man earns on average. Did these women only pay 77% of the cost of their education? Did they only attend class 77% of the time? No, they didn’t. So why then should female graduates enter a workforce make less than their male counterparts for doing the exact same work?

The answer is they shouldn’t. But unfortunately, they do. In California women earn slightly more than the national average, but still only earn 84 cents on the dollar. For women of color, the gap is even worse. Decades of research confirms that the pay gap persists even controlling for factors such as experience, career field, or education.

This is not only a problem for women, but for our entire society. It’s a human rights issue, and one that hurts families and endangers retirement security. Four in ten mothers are the primary breadwinners for their family and two-thirds are a major source of their family’s income. The pay gap between full-time working men and women amounts to an annual average of nearly $11,000 in lost income and totals hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime.

This year the state Legislature is considering several measures aimed at addressing income inequality. I introduced Assembly Bill 1354 to promote equal pay for equal work. My bill would require state contractors to maintain policies that help ensure pay equity and mandate proof of compliance with those policies through reporting on the wages these contractors pay their employees by gender and race. Collecting this additional data will help the state in appropriately targeting their efforts to reduce and eliminate the wage gap in California. This is only one step towards addressing the problem – there is still much to do.

Income inequality has been a problem in our country for generations, and if we don’t act now I fear it will go on for generations more. We owe it to these graduating students, the hardworking women in the workforce now, and future generations to correct this injustice.

State action is only one piece of the puzzle; we also need to stand together as a society to say it’s unacceptable to pay people less simply because of their gender. In the recent words of Elizabeth Warren, “We don’t win what we don’t fight for.”

I will continue to fight for equal pay for equal work, and I hope you will join the cause.