Springfield Republican: Treasurer Deb Goldberg launches online tool to measure gender pay gap

Springfield Republican // Shira Schoenberg

Massachusetts Treasurer Deb Goldberg launched a new website on Tuesday to help employers ensure that there is pay equity at their businesses.

The issue of equal pay, Goldberg said, "gets to the essence of economic security and economic stability."

Women's rights activists nationally have deemed April 12 Equal Pay Day, a date that represents the extra days an average woman must work to earn the same amount as a typical man did the previous year. President Barack Obama is using the day to designate a new national monument to the movement for women's equality – the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument, which is the house that has served as the headquarters for the National Woman's Party since 1929.

Goldberg launched the Massachusetts website, www.equalpayma.com

The site includes a toolkit for employers to determine whether there is a pay gap at their workplace and correct it. The toolkit describes how to do an internal audit of a workplace's pay system, how to make the pay scale and pay raises transparent and performance-based, and how to provide a more flexible workplace for employees. The document also includes suggestions for making the job application process gender-neutral, ensuring a fair salary negotiation process and building a pipeline of future employees through internship programs.

The site also includes a tool that anyone can use to determine the average wage gap for a woman in a particular industry. For example, it finds that an average woman working in the legal field earns $34 for every $66 that a man makes. In sales, the ratio is $10 for an average women to $26 for an average man.

Overall in Massachusetts, statistics from the National Women's Law Center show that an average woman earns 82 cents for every dollar a man makes. That number drops to 61 cents for African American women and 50 cents for Latina women. The statistics compare men and women's median annual earnings for full-time, year-round workers.

"This is not a partisan or solely a women's issue. It is a family issue," Goldberg said, speaking at a breakfast she organized in Boston for Equal Pay Day. "It affects the economic well being of our entire state."

Goldberg also announced that her office had received funding for a statewide program focused on empowering women in areas such as wage negotiations, saving for retirement and money management. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh earlier this month kicked off a series of free salary negotiation workshops for women. Goldberg said she intends to have similar workshops statewide.

The Equal Pay Day breakfast featured discussions and remarks by Attorney General Maura Healey, former Lt. Gov. Evelyn Murphy, Suffolk Construction Company CEO John Fish, and other leaders in business and government.

The Massachusetts State Senate passed a bill in January aimed at lessening the pay gap. The bill would prohibit employers from forbidding employees to discuss their salaries. It clarifies the term "comparable work" in an existing law that prohibits pay discrimination. It increases the fine for violations of the state's equal pay law and bans employers from reducing a worker's pay in order to comply with the act. The Massachusetts House has not yet taken up the bill, S.2107.