​​​​March 24, 2021

While many agree on the importance of equal pay,                      the hard work is putting it into practice.

For over fifty years in the United States, our laws have mandated equal pay for equal work. Although enforcement of the Equal Pay Act and other civil rights laws have helped narrow the wage gap over time, there is still more work to do. Women in the U.S. are still paid only 82 cents for every dollar paid to men in the workforce; the disparity for women of color is even larger.[i] In addition, under representation of women at all levels of organizations continues to be a key driver of the current wage gap. At the current rate of progress, the wage gap will not be closed until 2093.[ii] Addressing the pay disparities that remain and the systemic forces that perpetuate them is critical for everyone.

We, the undersigned employers, believe that business can play a critical role to increase representation of women and ultimately eliminate the national gender pay gap. Our organizations employ millions of Americans across multiple industries. Together, we have leveraged our collective experiences to create a shared set of Principles to Pay Equity. While every business has a different approach, our goal is to make the work behind eliminating the pay gap actionable and accessible to companies of all sizes.

Principles to Pay Equity

1. Equal Footing: From the start and throughout a career. One of the most important things to get right is starting pay, which greatly impacts pay as an employee advances throughout their career. Compensation should be based on a candidate or employee’s role, skills, abilities and experience, not their gender, race or any other protected classes.

2. Transparency: Achieving and sustaining pay equity is an imperfect process. We commit to sharing insights and learnings from our work to achieve pay equity. All employees are free to openly ask and discuss wages without fear of retaliation.

3. Accountability: We will hold ourselves accountable through practices such as conducting regular, comprehensive gender pay analyses across occupations, reviewing hiring and promotion processes to reduce unconscious bias and structural barriers, and embedding equal pay efforts into broader enterprise-wide equity initiatives.

We invite others to join us in recognizing the importance of this issue. Visit employersforpayequity.com to see how we are bringing these principles to life.

Respectfully,​

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[i] https://www.aauw.org/files/2016/02/Simple-Truth-Update-2019_v2-002.pdf
[ii] https://www.aauw.org/files/2016/02/Simple-Truth-Update-2019_v2-002.pdf

See here for more information on how companies are implementing pay equity principles