It’s been 50 years since President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law with an eye to eradicate gender-based wage inequity.
Because of the law, government employers are legally required to publicly post employee salaries, and a number of U.S. companies voluntarily engage in similar practices to encourage wage transparency.
But about 90 percent of the American labor force works in the private sector where most workplaces do not disclose wage information, and where many employers actually prohibit employee disclosure of their own earnings.
In 2013, despite the growing number of women in positions of power, full-time working women still make less than men on average.
As wage secrecy continues to exist, so does illegal gender wage discrimination and unjustified pay negotiations.
Joining The Takeaway is Marianne DelPo Kulow, Associate Professor of Law at Bentley University. She discusses whether mandatory wage disclosures could really close the gender-based wage gap.
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