Kamala Harris Unveils Her Plan to Fine Companies For Their 'Gender Pay Gap'

Brittany M. Hughes | May 20, 2019
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In an attempt to set herself apart from the other 22 - no, 23? - Democratic presidential candidates currently vying for their party's nomination, California senator and 2020 contender Kamala Harris over the weekend rolled out a proposal to force companies to close the so-called “gender wage gap,” also known as the debunked theory that women make about 80 cents for every dollar a man makes in the workplace.

According to this, Harris plans to roll out a new government mandate requiring companies to report how much they pay their female employees as opposed to their male ones. Companies that meet Big Brother’s standards for “equal pay” will be gifted with “Equal Pay Certification,” while those that don’t will be fined 1 percent of their profits for every 1 percent in their supposed wage gap.

Here’s a big chunk of Harris’ plan, as reported by the AP:

In Harris’s equal-pay plan, the campaign says, companies would be prohibited from asking about prior salary history as part of their hiring process, banned from using forced arbitration agreements in employment contracts for pay discrimination matters, and would be required to allow employees to freely discuss their pay. They would also be required to report the share of women who are among the company’s top earners, the total pay and total compensation gap that exists between men and women, regardless of job titles, experience and performance.

Because hey, why would those things be important when determining why some people get paid more?

Companies that contract with the federal government and don’t earn Equal Pay Certification under the plan’s new rules would be prohibited from competing for government contracts valued at more than $500,000.

“We’ve let corporations hide their wage gaps, but forced women to stand up in court just to get the pay they’ve earned. It’s time to flip the script and finally hold corporations accountable for pay inequality in America,” Harris’ campaign said in a statement accompanying the proposal roll-out.

It’s a plan Harris’ camp says would net about $180 million in fine-based revenue over the first decade, which would supposedly decrease over time as companies level out their pay. And, similar to her threats on gun control, the presidential candidate added that if Congress doesn’t enact the plan, she’ll do it herself through executive action.

That money, of course, would go to the federal government, not the women supposedly getting screwed over in their paychecks.

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