MANHATTAN — American employers must overcome a workplace bias that fuels the gender pay gap that devalues the work women perform, Hillary Clinton asserted Tuesday.
“The failure to ensure equal pay for women also impacts families and the broader economy,” she said, kicking off a panel discussion on the issue sponsored by Glassdoor, an online job marketplace.
Clinton, campaigning in New York ahead of Tuesday’s Democratic Party primary vote, called on employers to acknowledge and debunk the myths that perpetuate an economy that pays women 79 percent of what men earn for the same job.
She pointed to three myths: Pay inequality doesn’t exist; It’s a problem only for women; And laws against discrimination are already closing the pay gap.
“Perhaps the biggest myth of all is that we can’t solve these problems,” Clinton said.
The proposed Paycheck Fairness Act is an important weapon in the battle against wage-bias against women, she noted. The act, introduced two years ago in the Senate, would bolster the Equal Pay Act of 1963 by adding enforcement mechanisms to stop pay discrimination and punish employers who retaliate against employees who claim wage bias.
Clinton added that transparency in compensation is critically important in combating wage disparity between men and women. The problem is that “we don’t know what the pay gaps are, particularly in the private sector,” she said.
“Our challenge is to really demand transparency,” she said.
