(Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris unveiled a plan Monday to fine corporations that fail to prove to the government they’re paying women equally as men for similar work, and then use the money to fund a national paid-leave policy.
The California senator’s campaign says the plan is a “radical change” in how the U.S. deals with stubborn pay disparities. It touches on four causes important to many progressive voters -- gender equality, bridging the pay gap, corporate accountability and boosting paid leave. It comes as she and other White House hopefuls battle for the attention and affection of Democratic voters in a race currently dominated by former Vice President Joe Biden.
“Kamala Harris has a simple message for corporations: pay women fairly or pay the price,” the campaign said Monday in a policy blueprint.
Harris’s plan puts the onus on companies to obtain an “equal pay certification” from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency that enforces laws against workplace discrimination, and disclose on the homepage of their websites that they aren’t paying women less than men for work of equal .
Need Certification
The proposal would give companies with 500 or more employees two years to get certified, while firms with 100 or more workers would have three years. Businesses that fail to do so would be fined 1% of their average daily profits for every 1% of gender pay gap that exists after accounting for experience, job titles, performance and experience, according to the policy blueprint.
The policy doesn’t apply to businesses that employ less than 100 employees, a Harris aide said.
Women earned 85% of what men made in 2018, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings of Americans who work full and part time. The estimate suggests it would take an extra 39 days for women to earn what men did last year, Pew said.
Harris’s plan raises questions about enforcement and the standard of proof. Critics of such regulations say it’s already illegal to pay men and women differently, and that it’s difficult to quantify of work.
The pay-disparity measure is the second major policy proposal from Harris’s campaign, after a $315 million plan to boost teacher pay released in March. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts leads the 24-candidate Democratic field in rolling out detailed policy blueprints on issues including taxing wealth, providing universal child care and breaking up big technology companies. Many of the Democratic proposals reflect a desire among liberal voters to mitigate income inequality and expand the economic safety net.
The Harris campaign projects that her new proposal will raise $180 billion over a decade, with the funds directed to boosting paid leave to workers for family and medical reasons. The proposal by the former California prosecutor also calls for beefed-up investigations of workplace discrimination complaints to help enforce the rules.
While it would require legislative action to impose new standards on private corporations, Harris is promising executive actions to require federal contractors -- which employ millions of workers -- to obtain equal pay certification within two years or face disqualification for contracts worth more than $500,000.
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