[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 77 (Friday, April 20, 2012)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 23595-23596]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2012-9676]


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  Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 77 / Friday, April 20, 2012 / 
Presidential Documents  

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 Title 3--
 The President

[[Page 23595]]

                Proclamation 8800 of April 17, 2012

                
National Equal Pay Day, 2012

                By the President of the United States of America

                A Proclamation

                Working women power America's economy and sustain our 
                middle class. For millions of families across our 
                country, women's wages mean food on the table, decent 
                medical care, and timely mortgage payments. Yet, in 
                2010--47 years after President John F. Kennedy signed 
                the Equal Pay Act of 1963--women who worked full-time 
                earned only 77 percent of what their male counterparts 
                did. The pay gap was even greater for African American 
                and Latina women, with African American women earning 
                64 cents and Latina women earning 56 cents for every 
                dollar earned by a Caucasian man. National Equal Pay 
                Day represents the date in the current year through 
                which women must work to match what men earned in the 
                previous year, reminding us that we must keep striving 
                for an America where everyone gets an equal day's pay 
                for an equal day's work.

                At a time when families across our country are 
                struggling to make ends meet, ensuring a fair wage for 
                all parents is more important than ever. Women are 
                breadwinners in a growing number of families, and 
                women's earnings play an increasingly important role in 
                families' incomes. For them, fair pay is even more than 
                a basic right--it is an economic necessity.

                That is why my Administration is committed to securing 
                equal pay for equal work. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay 
                Act, the first bill I signed as President, empowers 
                women to recover wages lost to discrimination by 
                extending the time period in which an employee can file 
                a claim. In 2010, I was proud to create the National 
                Equal Pay Task Force to identify and combat equal pay 
                violations. The Task Force has helped women recover 
                millions in lost wages, built collaborative training 
                programs that educate employees about their rights and 
                inform employers of their obligations, and facilitated 
                an unprecedented level of inter-agency coordination to 
                improve enforcement of equal pay laws.

                Working women are at the heart of an America built to 
                last. Equal pay will strengthen our families, grow our 
                economy, and enable the best ideas and boldest 
                innovations to flourish--regardless of the innovator's 
                gender. On National Equal Pay Day, let us resolve to 
                become a Nation that values the contributions of our 
                daughters as much as those of our sons, denies them no 
                opportunity, and sets no limits on their dreams.

                NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the 
                United States of America, by virtue of the authority 
                vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the 
                United States, do hereby proclaim April 17, 2012, as 
                National Equal Pay Day. I call upon all Americans to 
                recognize the full value of women's skills and their 
                significant contributions to the labor force, 
                acknowledge the injustice of wage discrimination, and 
                join efforts to achieve equal pay.

[[Page 23596]]

                IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 
                seventeenth day of April, in the year of our Lord two 
                thousand twelve, and of the Independence of the United 
                States of America the two hundred and thirty-sixth.
                
                
                    (Presidential Sig.)

[FR Doc. 2012-9676
Filed 4-19-12; 8:45 am]
Billing code 3295-F2-P