California’s Gender Pay Gap: How 2 Proposed Laws Aim to Close It

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Although the most recent U.S. Census data, for 2015, reveals a 14 cent gap between the average wages of full-time male and female employees, California is still ahead of the U.S. as a whole. Creative Commons image by Flickr user

By Ben Christopher, CALmatters
California boasts some of the toughest “fair pay” laws in the country — yet the average full-time working woman has been earning only 86 cents for every dollar earned by a man. A recent study concluded that gap won’t close before the year 2043.

Two female lawmakers don’t intend to wait that long.

The Legislature, which in the past two years has approved a series of bills aimed at gender pay equity for substantially similar work, is considering going even further this session. The first proposal would bar a prospective employer from asking a job applicant about prior salary; the second would require large employers to publicly disclose the median earnings of salaried employees and board members, by gender.

Read the complete story at CALmatters.

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