The first nationwide reporting of employer-provided pay data to the U.S. government happened in September 2019. It was an opportunity to start holding companies accountable for their progress on diversity and inclusion—but the chance slipped by.
We all know what came to pass shortly thereafter. A triple crisis hit the U.S.: first the COVID-19 pandemic, then its associated economic fallout, and then police violence against Black people that sparked tremendous social upheaval, along with renewed calls for racial justice.
We are in the center of a storm in which women were (and still are) bearing the brunt of the impact: as frontline workers, as primary caregivers, and as those who lost the majority of all jobs. Yet not one penny of the over $2 trillion in economic stimulus issued to date has taken into account the pandemic’s gender-imbalanced wounds. If we don’t act now, these wounds will turn into permanent, damaging scars on our businesses, our communities, and the economy at large.