[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
[April 7, 1999]
[Pages 512-516]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion on Equal Pay
April 7, 1999

[The First Lady opened the program 
with brief remarks concerning wage discrepancies between men and women. 
She then introduced the President, joking that he said the wage gap went 
the other direction in their family until he became President.]

    The President. Thank you. That is the truth. [Laughter] But Hillary 
didn't tell you the rest of the story. Senator Harkin, whose wonderful wife, Ruth, was 
also a part of our administration for several years, she has often made 
more money than her husband. And so we decided that maybe we should 
become part of a small but vocal radical caucus saying we shouldn't stop 
at equal pay; we like it when our wives make more money than we do. 
[Laughter] We have enjoyed the benefits of that.
    I would like to thank Senator Harkin and 
Eleanor Holmes Norton for being here 
and for being longtime champions of this cause. I thank Ida 
Castro, our EEOC Chair, the local officials 
who are here, and Secretary Herman, who 
bears a lot of the responsibilities for what we are trying to achieve, 
for her work.
    I'd like to make just a few brief points. Hillary has made most of 
the points that need to be made, and we all know here we're preaching to 
the saved in trying to get a message out to the country. But I'd like to 
point out as I tried to do in the State of the Union that the time in 
which we are living now in terms of our economic prosperity is virtually 
unprecedented. We had 4.2 percent unemployment last month.
    I remember a meeting I had--and huge argument I had in December of 
1992 when I had been elected but not inaugurated President, about how 
low we could get unemployment before inflation would go up. And all the 
traditional economists said, ``Man, when you get below 6 percent, you 
know, you will just see what will happen.'' And the American people 
turned out to be a lot more productive, a lot more efficient; technology 
turned out to be a lot more helpful; we were in a much more competitive 
environment. So now, we have 4.2 percent unemployment, lowest rate since 
1970, lowest peacetime unemployment since 1957, 18 million new jobs.
    But we still have some significant long-term challenges in this 
country. We have pockets of America--in rural America, in urban America, 
in our medium-size industrial cities, our Native American reservations--
which have not felt any of the impact of the economic recovery. We still 
have substantial long-term challenges to Social Security, to Medicare. 
And we still have a significant fact of inequality in the pay of women 
and men.
    And the central point I would like to make is that we should not 
allow the political climate or anything else to deter us from 
concentrating our minds on the fact that this is a precious gift that 
the American people have received, even though they have earned it. 
Countries rarely have conditions like this. If we can't use this moment 
to deal with these long-term challenges, including the equal-pay 
challenge, when will we ever get around to it?
    That is the message I want America to send back to Washington. Yes, 
have your disagreements. Yes, have your fights. Yes, conduct your 
campaigns. Yes, do all this. But for goodness sakes, realize that this 
is, at a minimum, the opportunity of a generation, maybe more. And every 
single problem that we can take off the table for our successors and for 
our children

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is an obligation we ought to shoulder and get the job done. That's what 
this is about.
    And those of us who are old enough to remember what the economy was 
like in the 1970's with the long gas lines, what it was like in the 
1980's when we had the so-called bicoastal economy and my State and 
Senator Harkin's State had double-digit unemployment in county after 
county--I'm telling you, when times get tough and then you go around and 
try to talk to people about problems like this, their eyes glaze over 
because even the people who would benefit, they're just trying to keep 
body and soul together. They're worried about holding on to what they 
have. We have an opportunity now to make a better America for our 
children, for all of our children.
    The second point I want to make is the one I made jokingly in the 
story about Tom and me having the privilege of living with women who 
make more money than we do. And that is that this is not just a women's 
issue. The women who are discriminated against often are in families, 
raising children with husbands who are also hurt if their wives work 
hard and don't have the benefits of equal pay. A lot of the women who 
are single mothers are out there working, and they have boy children as 
well as girl children. This is not just a gender issue, and men should 
be very interested in this.
    I can say furthermore that I believe that it would be good for our 
overall economy. You know, you hear all these problems that they say it 
will cause the economy if you do this. All this stuff is largely not 
true. I mean, every time we try to make a change to have a stronger 
society, whether it's a raise in the minimum wage or cleaning up the 
environment or passing the family leave law, the people that are against 
it say the same thing. And we now have decades of experience in trying 
to improve our social fabric. And America has had a particular genius in 
figuring out how to do these things in a way that would permit us to 
generate more economic opportunity and more jobs and more advances.
    I'd like to make a third point not in my notes, but Hillary made me think of it. There are these people 
now who are out there saying, ``Well, there really isn't much of an 
equal pay problem because it's almost exclusively confined to women who 
have children. And women who have children have to have more 
intermittent periods in the workplace''--you've heard all the 
arguments--``and once you factor that out, well, there's no problem.''
    Well, I have two reactions to that. First of all, if you take that 
argument to its logical conclusion, we would be depopulating America 
before you know it. No one else has really figured out any way to bring 
children around, as far as I know. [Laughter]
    Secondly, if that is true, it still doesn't make it right. If you 
give the people the entire argument--which I don't think the analysis 
supports--but if you did, what does that mean? It means that an 
important part of the equal pay battle should be strengthening the 
family and medical leave law, for example, something I've been trying to 
do without success ever since we signed the first bill. It ought to 
apply to more companies. It ought to be more extensive. It ought to 
cover more situations. We've proved that we can do this without hurting 
the economy.
    And if you believe that having children is a significant factor here 
and if you believe as I do that's the most important work of any 
society, then why shouldn't we continue with something that's done so 
much good, this family leave law, to find other ways to do it, to find 
other incentives for flex-time, all kinds of things we could be doing if 
this is a problem.
    Now, finally, let's talk a little bit about what I think we can do 
about this right now. Earlier this year, I asked Congress to pass two 
measures to strengthen our wage discrimination laws and to boost 
enforcement of existing ones. I ask Congress again to pass the $14 
million equal pay initiative that's in our balanced budget to help the 
EEOC identify and respond to wage discrimination, to educate employers 
and workers about their rights and responsibilities--you'll hear some 
pretty impressive people talk about that on our panel in a moment--and 
to help bring more women into better paying jobs.
    Again, I ask the Congress to pass the ``Paycheck Fairness Act'' 
sponsored by Senator Daschle and 
Congresswoman DeLauro, which would put 
employers on notice that wage discrimination against women is just as 
unacceptable as discrimination based on race or ethnicity. Under current 
law, those who are denied equal pay because of race can receive 
compensatory and punitive damages. This new legislation would give women 
the same right. It will make a difference. It would protect employees 
who share salary information from retaliation. It

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would expand training for EEOC workers, strengthen research, establish 
an award for exemplary workers.
    We can do more. Today I'm pleased to announce that we want to 
strengthen our legislation by requiring the EEOC to determine what new 
information on workers' salaries they need to improve enforcement of 
wage discrimination laws and to find a way to collect that information. 
The new provision would call on the EEOC to issue a new rule within 18 
months to gather, in the most effective and efficient way possible, pay 
data from companies based on race, sex, and national origin of 
employees.
    Addressing wage discrimination takes courage, as our panelists can 
tell you. It takes courage as an employee to speak out, to gather 
evidence, to make the case. It takes courage as an employer to recognize 
problems in pay equity and take steps to remedy them.
    Just recently--let me just mention the experience of one of our 
panelists--we saw this courage among the 
administrators and women scientists at MIT, one of our country's most 
outstanding institutions of higher education. Together, they looked at 
the cold, hard facts about disparities in everything from lab space to 
annual salary. They sought to make things right, and they told the whole 
public the truth about it, which is a rare thing. And I appreciate what 
they did. I commend them. I hope their success and their example can be 
replicated throughout our country.
    Now again I say, this should not be a partisan issue. It should be 
an American issue. And as you argue through these matters this year, I 
ask you, every time you are in contact with any person in a position to 
vote on this in Congress or influence a vote in Congress, ask them this 
simple question: If we don't deal with this now, when will we ever get 
around to it?
    Thank you very much.

[Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman thanked 
the President and First Lady and made brief remarks. She then introduced 
the roundtable participants, and each made brief remarks on their 
perspective on equal pay issues.]

    The President. I would like to just start. We're going to do a 
little roundtable and just give the participants a chance to answer a 
few questions and amplify on their remarks. And taking account of Sanya 
Tyler's voice problems, I still want to ask her 
one question, because obviously the situation at Howard and the 
situation at MIT were resolved in different ways.
    After you won the lawsuit, did you feel that the administration 
treated you and other people who were in the same situation fairly? Did 
you feel like that the work environment was worse, and did you believe 
that the program also began to get more support, as well as on the 
wages? Was title IX and the other efforts you made, did you get more 
support for the program, as well as for your income?

[Ms. Tyler, head coach of women's basketball at 
Howard University, said she was proud of the university's response after 
she won her title IX discrimination suit, indicating that the current 
president made it clear that women had a significant role not only in 
the sports program but in the development and leadership of the 
university. The First Lady then 
called on Professor Nancy Hopkins, 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who stated that 5 years ago 
there were only 15 tenured women in MIT's School of Science and that 
discrimination against women at MIT was subtle and difficult to 
identify. She said that when an incident inspired her to prepare a 
strong letter of complaint to MIT's president, the other female faculty 
members all signed the letter and gathered data on the problem. After 
reviewing the data, MIT administrators took immediate action to 
institute changes. The First Lady agreed that often such problems were 
not readily apparent, and she commended MIT for its action.]

    The President. You know, the question that I wanted to ask, because 
this MIT thing is so unusual, is, do you 
believe that they knew it was going on before? And if they didn't know 
it was going on before--but all the women you went to had immediately 
related in the same way you did and signed up--how did it happen? 
Because I think this is something that data may not tell you. But I 
think this is what is really important, because there may be a lot of 
organizations out there where this sort of just creeps in, but the 
people now running these organizations don't know it.
    And what I'm hoping is that--it's not like--it may not be as overt 
as it was when Carolyn was in the work force, so how do you think this 
happened? It's very impressive that the president said, ``Okay, let's go 
do the right thing.'' But that raises the question of how did it happen 
in the first place?

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[Professor Hopkins stated that the top levels 
where power resided were the last frontier of the civil rights/
affirmative action process. She said that the discrimination there 
wasn't conscious, and thus the women themselves weren't aware of it; 
however, gender bias that was small in each instance added up to 20 
percent pay.]

    The President. Let me ask a specific question. Do you think--if there was no deliberate policy to hire all 
these people at a lower salary, and then not to raise them at some point 
to a comparable salary, and there was never a systematic policy, do you 
believe that--here's what I'm trying to get at--is there a still, sort 
of in the minds of at least the men who are making these hiring or pay 
decisions, this notion that there's a marketplace out there, and it's a 
big deal for a woman to be a tenured professor at MIT? And therefore, 
this was a market-based decision; this is what I can get this talent 
for; and this is what I'm going to pay? Is that what you think happened? 
And if not, what is it that you think happened?

[Professor Hopkins said that men approached 
these decisions differently than women, and that women had to share in 
the decisionmaking power. The First Lady then introduced Carolyn Gantt, an employee at a Washington, DC, senior center, who 
during her career had witnessed men with the same or lesser 
qualifications, in the same or lesser jobs, receiving more benefits and 
higher pay. When Mrs. Clinton asked how she became aware of the 
situation, Ms. Gantt replied that contacts in the community gave her 
access to lists of how much individuals in her organization were paid, 
and her knowledge of individuals' duties and qualifications led her to 
recognize the disparity in compensation. After going to the 
organization's board, she got a promotion but became a pariah. When she 
moved into a new position in the District of Columbia Government, she 
encountered the same situation.]

    The President. Let me just use this remarkable woman's case as an illustration of a point I made in 
my remarks, that this is something that imposes great economic costs on 
the society as a whole.
    You have seven children, right?
    Ms. Gantt. I still have seven, but they're 
grown. [Laughter]
    The President. And you're still working part-time? And how old are 
you?
    Ms. Gantt. Do you really want me----[Laughter]
    The President. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you another question. 
You are----
    Ms. Gantt. ----[inaudible]--category. [Laughter]
    The President. I know I shouldn't have asked. [Laughter] The reason 
I ask you is because you look so much younger 
than you are. [Laughter]
    But let me ask--the point I wanted to make is, she has been for some 
time eligible for Social Security. Here's the point I want to make about 
the issue. You know we're having this big Social Security debate here 
now, and we're in an argument in the Congress about how to save Social 
Security. Why? Because the number of people over 65 are going to double 
between now and the year 2030. And the Trust Fund runs out of money in 
35 years. And for it to be stable, it needs to last for 75 years. But in 
addition to that, we need to lift the earnings limit for people who work 
when they're over 65, I think, so they can still draw their Social 
Security, number one. And number two, we need to have a remedial program 
to deal with the fact that the poverty rate among single elderly women 
is twice, almost twice the general poverty rate among seniors in this 
country.
    Why? A lot of it is because of stories like this. So you've either 
got people like this remarkable lady who is healthy enough and, as you 
can see, more than quite alert and on top of things and energetic, who 
continue to work on and on, or you have people who can't do that, and 
they are twice as likely to be living in poverty even when they draw 
Social Security.
    This is another of the consequences of this. And so the rest of you 
are going to have to pay to fix this, unless you just want to let it go 
on. And I don't think, since we have some money to fix it now, I presume 
none of us want to let it go on, and we'd like to fix it.
    But we should understand that none of this--this kind of 
discrimination is not free to the rest of us, as well. Just because you 
haven't felt it directly doesn't mean that you're not weakened and 
lessened because of the quality of life, the strength of your society, 
the fabric of it is not eroded by this. And that's the point I wanted--I 
didn't want to embarrass her about her age, but I think it's important 
that you understand that this is a cost imposed on the whole

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society. And one of the big efforts we're going to make this year in 
this saving Social Security is to do something about this dramatic 
difference in the poverty rate. And it would be much, much lower if no 
one had ever had the experiences you just heard described.

[Secretary Herman commented that the 
pension gap was even greater than the 75-cents-to-every-dollar gap for 
regular wages and that only 40 percent of women had pension coverage. 
The First Lady then introduced 
Patricia Higgins, a nurse who had 
encountered subtle wage discrimination in her field. She said that while 
the profession required idealism and dedication, medical advances meant 
that levels of training, skill, and responsibility had increased, and 
compensation should also increase. Secretary Herman commented that many 
institutions had good policies and procedures which were often not 
supported in practice. She said the administration was supporting 
legislation to share salary information without fear of reprisal and 
asked Ms. Tyler if she thought that would be 
helpful. Ms. Tyler stated that pursuing her case in court had been very 
successful and generated real dollars for the many coaches affected.]

    The President. Thank you very much. Let me say on behalf of all of 
us, we're delighted that you're here. We especially thank Senator 
Harkin and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes 
Norton for their leadership, and we 
thank our panelists. They were all terrific.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The discussion began at 1:53 p.m. in Presidential Hall (formerly 
Room 450) in the Old Executive Office Building. In his remarks, the 
President referred to Title IX--Prohibition of Sex Discrimination, part 
of Public Law 92-318, the Education Amendments of 1972. The transcript 
released by the Office of the Press Secretary also included the full 
text of the remarks of the First Lady and the roundtable participants. 
The National Equal Pay Day proclamation of April 7 is listed in Appendix 
D at the end of this volume.