Lilly Ledbetter Act Signed, Ensures Equal Pay

Yay for Pay Equity!! 

Wonderful news out of D.C. this morning where President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a bill that overturns a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that said a person must file a claim of discrimination within 180 days of a company's initial decision to pay a worker less than it pays another worker doing the same job. 

Video courtesy of Huffington Post: Lilly Ledbetter Act: Obama Signs His First Bill

In his full remarks, President Obama noted:

"So signing this bill today is to send a clear message: that making our economy work means making sure it works for everybody; that there are no second-class citizens in our workplaces; and that it's not just unfair and illegal, it's bad for business to pay somebody less because of their gender or their age or their race or their ethnicity, religion or disability; and that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory, or footnote in a casebook. It's about how our laws affect the daily lives and the daily realities of people: their ability to make a living and care for their families and achieve their goals.

Ultimately, equal pay isn't just an economic issue for millions of Americans and their families, it's a question of who we are -- and whether we're truly living up to our fundamental ideals; whether we'll do our part, as generations before us, to ensure those words put on paper some 200 years ago really mean something -- to breathe new life into them with a more enlightened understanding that is appropriate for our time."

Join us in D.C. this March at our National Young Women's Leadership Conference and celebrate the passage of the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act! 

A bientôt!

- Olivia