Women still making less than men

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In the administration latest foray to bring women's wages up to equality with men's pay for the same work, both the Vice president and the Secretary of Labor have been prominent.

Vice President Joe Biden, chair of the White House Middle Class Task Force, said at a July 20 event: "Two-thirds of families with children are headed either by two working parents or by a single parent who works. Yet, the workplace has, for the most part, not changed to reflect these realities - and it must."

In 2009, during his first week in office, Obama supplemented and strengthened the Kennedy era legislation by signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which reversed the wage discrimination ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.  The law enables women employees to file charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and seek remedy for discriminatory compensation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Wage discrimination by gender is not simply a woman's issue. it is also an economic security probelm for families, Biden said.

"The gender pay gap constrains our economy's growth, by reducing the number of women in the work force and by preventing them from maximizing their potential in the most productive jobs," Terrell McSweeny, Domestic Policy Advisory to the Vice President, said.  "As families depend more on women's wages, eliminating wage discrimination is also critical for middle class economic security -- families who are working hard can hardly afford to lose part of a paycheck to discrimination."

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis pointed out that, in families of married couples, the wife's earnings represent 36 percent of the family income.

"And approximately 2 million women have now become the sole breadwinner, supporting families with just over one-third of the usual family income," Solis said.

Women have made strides in increasing their numbers in male-dominated occupations. In additioon, among the 20 leading occupations of employed women, women form the majority of workers among all but supervisors of retail sales workers, managers and cooks, Solis said.

Several initiatives have been launched to deal with pay gap and working mothers.

"The Department of Labor's Women's Bureau is conducting research and analysis, providing technical assistance, and building partnerships to increase women's incomes, narrow the wage gap, and reduce income inequality," Obama said in June, on the anniversary of the 1963 law. "And the White House Council on Women and Girls is actively working to close the wage gap."

According to Solis, the Department of Labor is putting renewed emphasis on the identification and elimination of gender-based compensation discrimination at the worksites of Federal contractors. In addition, the Women's Bureau is increasing its outreach to stakeholders and its education efforts to its customers to apprise them of their employment rights.

The Department of Labor is also launching an Equal Pay Checklist, revamping the Equal Pay Employer self-audit tool, and hosting an Equal Pay Research Summit, officials said.

The National Equal Pay Enforcement Task Force is a collaboration of EEOC, the Department of Labor, the Department of Justice and the Office of Personnel Management, with its mission to improve interagency coordination for law enforcement, data collection, education and developing strategies for additional Congressional action.

When signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act of 2009, President Obama said that having "second class citizens in our workplaces" is not "just unfair and illegal - but bad for business - to pay someone less because of their gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion or disability."