Obama Seeks to Equalize Pay for Women
Obama signed two new executive orders on April 8th, which will prohibit federal contractors from retaliating against employees that would talk about salaries. The other will mandate the labor department to start collecting data on federal contract worker’s race and age.
These actions taken by Obama are to fulfill his promises to the people that voted for him; to bring the debt of the country down, and to make there no difference in pay due to gender.
These are a series of actions that Obama is taking to try and fulfil his commitments that he made during his second election term. Obama wants to be able to fulfill his promises about the paycheck issue. He has already raised the minimum wage of federal contractors to $10.10 an hour.
Federal contractors make up about a quarter of the labor force, as stated by CBS News. This is only a small part of the American economy, but without bipartisan support, it is likely the best that Obama can do.
Neither Obama, nor any president ever, has the ability to manipulate the economy in such a way that he would be able to force equal pay between genders. If he truly wants to get this done, then he will need both Republican and Democratic support.
However, he is facing Republican opposition at every turn.
Republicans state that the executive orders will not actually help workers, but that it will cost over half a million jobs due to the increase in pay, as reported by MSNBC.
As it stands now, Obama will not be able to provide much to the American working force as a whole, and will have to stay within the limits where he has ultimate power, or overwhelming support.
With this being Obama’s last year in office, as each person can only win a presidential election twice, he may start to try and push harder than usual to get what he wants. He’ll be able to do this because he will not need to worry about another election campaign.
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