The last time she ran for president, Vice President Kamala Harris said she planned to use executive orders to force companies to pay their employees what she deemed fair and “equal” – and generate $180 billion by fining those who didn’t.
Under her equal pay proposal, companies would be presumed guilty of paying unequal wages to men and women – unless they prove they’re innocent of discrimination and gain an “equal pay certificate” from the federal government (EEOC) every two years.
“So, what I am proposing is that we shift the burden away from that working woman and instead onto that corporation to prove that their paying people equally,” Harris told MSNBC in May of 2019 while she was running for Democrats’ presidential nomination.
Harris said she wanted to put the onus on corporations to "prove...they're doing the right thing, which is to pay people equally for equal work." A woman shouldn’t “have the burden on her to figure out that she is not being paid the same amount. That should be the business of the -- of the leaders of these corporations,” Harris said.
And, if an employer doesn’t pay what she considered to be equal pay, the corporation would be fined, based on how wide its gender pay gap was. Harris estimated her plan would generate roughly $180 billion over 10 years, with revenue decreasing over time as her equal pay policies became part of corporate culture.
What’s more, Harris said she wouldn’t wait for Congress to impose her onerous and costly plan on businesses. Instead, she’d “take executive action herself,” the Harris Campaign pledged.
Companies would be required to obtain an “Equal Pay Certification”:
- To receive certification, companies would have to demonstrate they have eliminated pay disparities between women and men who are doing work of equal value. To the extent pay disparities did exist for similar jobs, companies would be required to show the gap was based on merit, performance, or seniority -- not gender.
- In applying for certification, companies would have to disclose their pay policies and align them with best-practice standards.
- Companies would be required to report statistics on the percentage of women in leadership positions and the percentage of women who are among the company’s top earners.
- Companies would also be required to report the overall pay and total compensation gap that exists between men and women, regardless of job titles, experience, and performance. These statistics will be reported by employees’ race and ethnicity.
- Companies that failed to receive “Equal Pay Certification” would face a fine for every day they discriminate against their workers. Fines would be assessed based on a company’s average wage gap for work of equal value. For every 1% gap that exists after accounting for differences in job titles, experience, and performance, companies would be fined at 1% of their average daily profits during the last fiscal year.