Ivanka Trump opposes Obama's equal pay legislation

By

Cassidy Mantor

Published
Aug 31, 2017

In her official White House Senior Advisor role, Ivanka Trump is supporting the Trump Administration's plan to scrap the Obama Administration's legislation for equal pay based on gender, race and ethnicity.

The legislation was originally proposed by Obama in 2016 and scheduled to become effective in the spring of this year. Under the new law, employers with over 100 employees would have had to turn over wage records to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

According to the EEOC, the goal of the law was to create a summary of pay data that would help the EEOC "identify patterns that may warrant further investigation."

Now the White House believes the legislation would be too burdensome. The amount of paperwork it would create would defeat the purpose of getting to the bottom of wage discrepancies, according to Neomi Rao an administrator from the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

While Ivanka Trump has previously supported equal pay for women, she issued the following statement against the current legislation: "Ultimately, while I believe the intention was good and agree that pay transparency is important, the proposed policy would not yield the intended results." She went on to say she looks forward to working with relevant stakeholders to come up with a better plan.

Ivanka's support of dropping the legislation comes in direct conflict with her usual stance on women's rights. Before stepping away from her Ivanka Trump branded clothing line for her political role, she created looks designed for career women. The brand stands for "inspiring and empowering women."

In keeping with her brand's heritage, since becoming an official employee of the federal government, Ivanka has campaigned for increased paid family leave as well as childcare tax benefits. She has lobbied for workforce development and for drawing increased awareness to education as well as putting an end to human trafficking.

She posted on her Instagram on Equal Pay Day in April that "Closing the gender pay gap is critical to the economic empowerment of American women, and it is the responsibility of all Americans to come together in pursuit of equal pay."

According to Ivanka Trump's post, women currently earn 82% of the weekly income that men earn. Black women earn 68% and Latina women earn 62% of the weekly paycheck that a white man earns.

Despite her public statements for equality, her recent lack of support for the equal pay legislation brings her commitment to closing the gender pay gap into question.