Presidential Documents

Federal Register / Vol. 87, No. 52 / Thursday, March 17, 2022 / Presidential Documents 15029 

Proclamation 10348 of March 14, 2022 

National Equal Pay Day, 2022 

By the President of the United States of America 

A Proclamation 

Equal pay is a matter of justice, fairness, and dignity—it is about living 

up to our values and who we are as a Nation. For over 25 years, Equal 

Pay Day has helped draw attention to gender-based pay disparities by highlighting how far into a new year a woman must work, on average, to 

earn what a man did in the previous year. 

This year, Equal Pay Day falls on March 15, the earliest we have ever 

marked the occasion. The earlier that Equal Pay Day arrives, the closer 

our Nation has come to achieving pay fairness. But while we should celebrate 

the progress we have made, as I have said in the past, we should not 

be satisfied until Equal Pay Day is no longer necessary at all. 

In 2020, the average woman working full-time, year-round, for wages or 

a salary earned 83 cents for every dollar paid to their average male counterpart. And once again, the disparities are even greater for Black, Native 

American, Latina, and certain subpopulations of Asian women when compared to white men. Disabled women also continue to experience significant 

disparities and make 80 cents for every dollar compared to men with disabilities. The pay gap reflects outright discrimination as well as barriers that 

women face in accessing good-paying jobs and meeting caregiving responsibilities—including a lack of affordable child care, paid family and medical 

leave, and fair and predictable scheduling—which often prevent women 

from joining and staying in the workforce. 

Over the course of a career, the pay gap can add up to hundreds of thousands 

of dollars in lost earnings, particularly for women of color, significantly 

impacting retirement savings and uniquely burdening households led by 

single mothers. 

The Biden-Harris Administration has moved quickly to deliver results for 

women and working families and to dismantle the barriers that women 

face in the workplace. In our first full year in office, we saw the largest 

calendar year decline in unemployment. We also saw the strongest economic 

growth in nearly 4 decades, rising wages, and an estimated nearly 40 percent 

decline in child poverty. We have turned the tide on women’s labor force 

participation, which the COVID–19 pandemic had pushed to a more than 

30-year low. In addition, my Administration has taken key steps to address 

pay discrimination, including issuing an Executive Order directing the Office 

of Personnel Management to take appropriate steps to advance equal pay 

at Federal agencies. And I have raised the minimum wage for Federal 

contractors, which has significantly benefitted women—especially women 

of color—who are disproportionately represented in minimum-wage and 

low-wage jobs. 

We can be proud of that progress—but there is more we need to do. My 

Administration is fighting to ensure that women have the free and fair 

choice to organize and collectively bargain for the wages and benefits they 

deserve and to access training for good-paying jobs in sectors where they 

have historically been underrepresented. We are working to eliminate anticompetitive barriers that keep women from bargaining for better pay and 

demanding dignity and respect in the workplace. I have continued to call 


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15030 Federal Register / Vol. 87, No. 52 / Thursday, March 17, 2022 / Presidential Documents 

on the Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would help 

mitigate sex-based pay discrimination while ensuring greater transparency 

and reporting of disparities in wages. And I am continuing to work with 

the Congress to pass critical legislation that would lower the cost of child 

care, elder care, home-based health care, and other major barriers to working 

families, while raising compensation for care workers, who are disproportionately women of color and who have been underpaid and undervalued for 

far too long. 

If we are going to continue our record-breaking recovery and build a truly 

strong and competitive economy for the future, we have to address the 

barriers that have long held women back from full participation and fair 

treatment in the workforce. The founding promise of our Nation is that 

all people are created equal—and my Administration is committed to ensuring that all Americans have a fair and equal opportunity to get ahead, 

so that one day soon we can render Equal Pay Day a relic of the past. 

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., 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 March 15, 2022, 

as National Equal Pay Day. I call upon all Americans to recognize the 

full value of women’s skills and their significant contributions to the labor 

force, acknowledge the injustice of wage inequality, and join efforts to achieve 

equal pay. 

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fourteenth day 

of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-two, and of the 

Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fortysixth. 

[FR Doc. 2022–05797 

Filed 3–16–22; 8:45 am] 

Billing code 3395–F2–P 


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