California Senator and Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris (D) on Monday unveiled a plan that would punish companies that fail to pay men and women equal wages.
“What I am proposing is we shift the burden,” said Harris. “It should not be on that working woman to prove it, it should instead be on that large corporation to prove they’re paying people for equal work equally.”
The senator’s proposal would force large companies to submit annual reports proving they have “eliminated pay disparities between women and men who are doing work of equal value.”
If pay gaps exist for similar jobs, employers must provide a reason other than gender.
Reports must include the percentage of female employees in leadership positions, the share of women who are among a company’s top earners, and the overall pay gap between the genders (regardless of position, experience, and performance).
Harris’s plan would also block companies from asking about prior salary history when hiring and prevent the inclusion of forced arbitration agreements in employment contracts for pay discrimination disputes.
“[My plan] will radically change the way we enforce equal pay in America,” said Harris. “Under our plan, for the first time in American history, companies will be held responsible for demonstrating they are not engaging in pay discrimination.”
Companies with 100 or more employees would have three years to obtain a certificate showing compliance with the new rules; companies with 500 or more employees would have two years.
Companies that fail to obtain the certificate within the given timeframe will suffer steep fines.
“This is a very big issue in our country and deserves all the resources and attention that anyone would expect when we are talking about whether or not people are paid for the work they do,” continued Harris. “It’s a simple American value, as far as I’m concerned, pay people for the work they do.”
If elected president, Harris said she would implement the plan with or without Congress. If necessary, she would use executive action to force companies that want to bid on federal contracts to comply with the equal pay standards.
Key problems with Harris’s proposal include:
- Compliance would waste time and resources
- Enforcement would damage the economy
- There is no fair way to define “equal work”
On top of that, the business community will do everything it can to block the proposal from passing. And even if it did pass, companies would create new titles and new job descriptions to avoid altering pay rates.
Author’s Note: Despite what you may have heard from the liberal media, there is little research suggesting women earn less money than men when working the exact same job.
Census data shows that women earned 20% less than men in 2017, but this is an average for all full-time positions. Unpopular studies suggest the so-called “pay gap” is the result of many factors, with gender having very little impact.
Bottom line: Kamala Harris’s proposal is a desperate attempt to attract female voters before they decide on another candidate. It will never pass.
Editor’s note: Kamala has confused “equal opportunity,” which is the value that most Americans believe in, with “equal outcome guarantees” which is socialist garbage.