The White House said collecting the data will help focus public enforcement of equal pay laws and provide better insight into discriminatory pay practices across industries and occupations.
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Among the most significant moves will be requiring companies with more than 100 employees to report pay data by gender, race, and ethnicity.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Labor will publish the proposed regulation.
The data will be used by the EEOC, which enforces federal discrimination laws, to identify wage disparities between women and men in USA workplaces.
Complying with the new rule will cost less than $400 for each employer in the first year, the White House estimated, and several hundred dollars annually in subsequent years.
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But a stubborn, substantial pay gap between men and women persists, and it affects black and Latina women the most, Obama said Friday as he introduced the proposal. Democrats have repeatedly introduced the Paycheck Fairness Act during the current administration, but it has always been defeated.
Ledbetter, whose name has become synonymous with the equal pay issue, flanked Obama at the White House and said she still hears every day from women who are “frustrated and angry” about being paid less.
“We can’t know what we don’t know”.
White House and administration officials announced the measure in a call with reporters Thursday evening, but a more formal announcement is planned for Friday to mark the seventh anniversary of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
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On a visit to Vermont, as keynote speaker for Senator Leahy’s Women’s Economic Opportunity Conference, Ledbetter spoke about the massive loss in income her family suffered as a result of the wage gap she had experienced over 19 years: losses in pension income, contributions to her employer-sponsored retirement fund program, social security income, and less money available to contribute to her own independently managed 401K plan. “You really have to get started on the right foot”.
