National Equal Pay Day, 2009

Proclamation 8366 of April 28, 2009

National Equal Pay Day, 2009

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Harriet Beecher Stowe helped galvanize the
abolitionist movement with her groundbreaking
literature. Frances Perkins advised President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt and led the Department of Labor during
one of its most challenging periods in history. Barbara
McClintock helped unlock the mysteries of genetics and
earned a Nobel Prize. These and countless other women
have broken barriers and changed the course of our
history, allowing women and men who followed them the
opportunity to reach greater heights.

Despite these achievements, 46 years since the passage
of the Equal Pay Act and 233 years since our Nation was
established with the principle of equal justice under
law, women across America continue to experience
discrimination in the form of pay inequity every day.
Women in the United States earn only 78 cents for every
dollar a man earns, and today marks the inauspicious
occasion when a woman's earnings finally catch up with
a man's from the previous year. On National Equal Pay
Day, we underscore the importance of this issue to all
Americans.

If we wish to honor our Nation's highest ideals, we
must end wage discrimination. The Founders established
a timeless framework of rights for the American people.
Generation after generation has worked and sacrificed
so that this framework might be applied equally to all
Americans. To honor these Americans and stay true to
our founding ideals, we must carry forward this
tradition and breathe life into these principles by
supporting equal pay for men and women.

Wage discrimination has a tangible and negative impact
on women and families. When women receive less than
their deserved compensation, they take home less for
themselves and their loved ones. Utilities and
groceries are more difficult to afford. Mortgages and
rent bills are harder to pay. Children's higher
education is less financially feasible. In later years
of life, the retirement that many women have worked so
hard for--and have earned--is not possible. This
problem is particularly dire for women who are single
and the sole supporters of their families. Women should
not and need not endure these consequences.

My Administration is working to advance pay equity in
the United States. The first bill I signed into law as
President, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009,
allows more women to challenge pay discrimination by
extending the timeline within which complaints can be
filed. This law advances the struggle for equal pay,
but it is only an initial step. To continue this
progress, I issued an Executive Order establishing the
White House Council on Women and Girls. This high-level
body, composed of Cabinet members and heads of sub-
Cabinet agencies, is charged with advancing the rights
and needs of women, including equal pay.

Still, Government can only advance this issue so far.
The collective action of businesses, community
organizations, and individuals is necessary to ensure
that every woman receives just treatment and
compensation. We Americans must come together to ensure
equal pay for both women and men by reminding ourselves
of the basic principles that underlie our Nation's

strength and unity, understanding the unnecessary
sacrifices that pay inequity causes, and recalling the
countless women leaders who have proven what women can
achieve.

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 28, 2009, as
National Equal Pay Day. I call upon American men and
women, and all employers, to acknowledge the injustice
of wage discrimination and to commit themselves to
equal pay for equal work.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
twenty-eighth day of April, in the year of our Lord two
thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United
States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.