Equal Pay Today Campaign Co-Founder Joins President at White House on Equal Pay Day to Celebrate Women’s History Month

March 16. 2022

For Immediate Release
Mar 16, 2022

Media Contact
Nazirah Ahmad
[email protected]

Noreen Farrell, Executive Director of Equal Rights Advocates, joined President Biden, Dr. Biden, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the White House on Tuesday to celebrate Women’s History Month; called for policies to help close the gender pay gap

March 16, 2022  — Pay equity and gender justice expert Noreen Farrell, Executive Director of Equal Rights Advocates, joined President Biden, Dr. Biden, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the White House Tuesday to celebrate Women’s History Month.

“It was an honor to join the president, Dr. Biden and Speaker Pelosi at the White House on Equal Pay Day, where the president discussed ways to achieve pay equity,” Farrell said. March 15, 2022, marks the day when the average U.S. woman’s income catches up to what the average man earned last year. “We are committed to working with Congress and this Administration to enact policies that ensure we mark this day a little earlier each year, until we don’t mark it at all.”

The Equal Pay Today campaign is committed to fighting for equal pay and addressing the long-standing gender wage gap while working to combat its key contributors, including pay discrimination, occupational segregation, and lack of pay transparency, while engaging groups across women’s legal and advocacy sectors.

“The pandemic shined a light on long standing structures hindering women workers, especially those of color who are experiencing the greatest economic precarity. Women need equal pay for equal work [and] one fair wage.”

“While March 15 marks the day when the average woman catches up to the average man’s pay from the year prior, that gap is even greater for women of color, LGBTQIA+ workers, moms, and part-time and gig workers,” Farrell said. “We appreciate the President making it a priority to fight for economic justice for all women workers. Our economy and our nation will be better for it.”

ERA seeks to raise awareness of these disparities through its Equal Pay Today campaign and has expanded who is included in their equal pay data with a new and more inclusive methodology.

“For decades, equal pay discussions have focused on white-collar workers because the data used compared only full-time jobs. That ends now,” Farrell said. “The lowest paid women in our country often work multiple part-time jobs to support their families. Many migrant and seasonal workers who’ve been excluded work long, hard days in fields picking the food that sustains every family in our country. These hardworking women most be included and fought for in our equal pay work, alongside everyone else. Their exclusion from the conversation has created an inaccurate picture of how dire the situation is, especially for women of color.”

Beyond March 15, they’ve provided a calendar of equal pay dates that reflect the larger wage gap experienced by women of different demographics.

“The pandemic shined a light on long standing structures hindering women workers, especially those of color who are experiencing the greatest economic precarity. Women need equal pay for equal work, one fair wage—which includes raising the minimum wage and abolishment of the submininim wage for tipped workers—protection from caregiver discrimination, safety from harassment and health hazards, and access to higher paid jobs,” Farrell said. “It is incumbent upon our government to make these rights real for hardworking family breadwinners in communities of color.”

About Equal Rights Advocates

Equal Rights Advocates fights for gender justice in workplaces and schools across the country. Since 1974, they have been fighting on the front lines of social justice to protect and advance rights and opportunities for women, girls, and people of all gender identities through groundbreaking legal cases and bold legislation that sets the stage for the rest of the nation.