Governor Proclaims Equal Pay Day 2024

EQUAL PAY DAY

2024

BY THE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

A PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS, Equal Pay Day emphasizes transparency in pay and brings awareness to the gender wage gap across our state and nation; and

WHERAS, women are often underpaid compared to men and continue to encounter hiring and advancement obstacles like access to childcare, causing them to leave the workforce at higher rates than men, according to the State’s First in Talent Plan; and

WHEREAS, according to the Workers’ Rights Project’s 2023 State of Working North Carolina Report, the gender wage gap transcends to women of all occupations but is far greater among women of color; while the average full-time working woman earned $2.04 less than the median hourly wage of men in 2022, Latina and Black women earned $7.23 and $3.45 less, respectively; and

WHEREAS, in North Carolina, while the women-to-men earnings ratio has decreased, women still only earn 88.4 percent of what men do; in 2021, North Carolina women earned a weekly median income of $803, a difference of $151 less compared to men; and

WHEREAS, according to the NC Council for Women & Youth Involvement’s 2018 Status of Women in North Carolina: Employment and Earnings report, if the gender wage gap is left unchanged, the present disparities will continue until 2060; closing the gender wage gap and reducing occupational segregation would increase earnings for women, reducing the poverty rate among working women by more than half; and

WHEREAS, despite recent strides that have been made to increase female representation on corporate boards, in 2021, only 26.4 percent of board members from the state’s 50 largest public corporations were women, according to the UNC - Chapel Hill’s School of Law Director Diversity Census; women, particularly women of color, are underrepresented on boards and lack equitable access to high-paying director compensation, contributing to the gender pay gap; increasing gender diversity on corporate boards will reduce disparities that exist at the leadership level; and

WHEREAS, in 2019, Governor Roy Cooper signed Executive Order No. 93, prohibiting the use of salary history in the State hiring process, to help advance equality for women and families so that they are more economically secure; and

WHEREAS, the benefits of increasing the share of women in the labor force, closing the gender wage gap, and increasing women's representation in high-growth occupations such as information technology, clean energy, and biopharmaceuticals, would extend beyond individual women to their families, communities, and the entire state;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, ROY COOPER, Governor of the State of North Carolina, do hereby proclaim March 12, 2024, as “EQUAL PAY DAY” in North Carolina, and commend its observance to all citizens.

                                                                           ________________________________________

                                                                                                           Roy Cooper

                                                                                                              Governor

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the Great Seal of the State of North Carolina at the Capitol in Raleigh this twelfth day of March in the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty-four and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-eighth.