Harris teams up with women’s soccer team to mark Equal Pay Day

Vice President Harris on Tuesday marked Equal Pay Day with a conversation with members of the United States women’s soccer team about their fight for fair compensation.

“Obviously you all have been champions in terms of your skill and your dominance in terms of women’s soccer but we are here today because you also have been leaders on an issue that effects most women and have effected most women in the workforce, and it’s the issue of pay equity,” Harris said to kick off the panel.

U.S. women’s national team players Kelley O’Hara and Margaret Purce were seated with the vice president, as well as former players Briana Scurry, Julie Foudy and Cindy Parlow Cone, who is the president of the U.S. Soccer Federation. Other soccer stars, Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, joined the conversation virtually.

Harris asked the players about their equal pay lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation, which was settled in February for $24 million. 

She specifically asked Scurry about the risks of the lawsuit. Scurry said that having your name on a legal document creates extra work on top of playing and winner soccer games.                                                   

“The vulnerability to put your name on a legal document and then put yourself in a court setting that is adversarial in nature, all because you want to get paid equal pay for equal work and what that requires of that woman, beyond doing a good job, to your point, I think that’s such a, it’s a subtle but incredibly important point,” Harris responded.

The vice president asked Rapinoe about lessons she has learned from women in other industries.

“I’m not going to pass up this opportunity certainly for my life and the first time ever, hopefully not the last, to just say: Madam Vice President. That’s incredible. And, although it doesn’t have to specifically do with equal pay I think it speaks to a changing landscape that we’re all part of,” Rapinoe said. 

She noted that if she sees herself in union workers in Alabama and they see themselves in the team, “its all kind of the same thing because we’re all dealing with the same issues.”

The Biden administration on Tuesday proposed regulation that would prevent federal agencies from using a job applicant’s prior salary history in the hiring process. 

“Pay transparency creates accountability and accountability, well, that drives progress,” Harris said about the order in remarks before the panel. “We can build a more fair, more efficient, and more equitable economy.”

Harris noted that in 2020, the average woman working full-time earned 83 cents for every dollar paid to the average man.

Equal Pay Day marks the date each year to which women must work to earn the same pay that men made in the year prior. 

Biden will also sign an executive order on pay equity and transparency for federal contractors and the Labor Department will highlight a new directive that clarifies that federal contractors are obligated to analyze compensation practices on a yearly basis.