SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Fighting against the pay discrepancy has been a mission for First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom for decades.

To commemorate Equal Pay Day on March 12, Siebel Newsom released the Equal Pay Playbook website, which has a multi-step guide to help businesses reach pay equity.

Data from the California Civil Rights Department shows women in California make an estimated 81 cents for every dollar a man makes. For Black women, the gap is 58 cents, and for Latinas, it’s 44 cents.

“In 2024, women are still not paid equally to their white male counterparts and continue to lose billions annually to their white male counterparts and continue to lose billions annually to the wage gap,” said California’s First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

“In my lifetime, I am desperate to see pay equity and gender equity,” she noted.

The playbook builds on her Equal Pay Pledge initiative, which she started in her first year as First Partner. Companies can sign on to the initiative to publicly commit to closing the wage gap.

Last year, over 100 companies had signed the pledge. This year, more than 200 California-based companies, organizations and municipalities have come on board. Some of the new signatories include the city of Glendale, Stich Fix and the Sacramento Kings.

“[The pledge] basically asks them to conduct an annual pay gap analysis, review their hiring and promotion practices to reduce bias and ultimately conduct pay equity best practices like transparency,” Siebel Newsom explained.

The mother of four added that California is ahead of other states regarding pay equity; however, the gender pay gap exists in almost every major sector.

“Despite significant progress in recent years, gender and racial wage disparities persist across the workforce,” said California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls Executive Director Holly Martinez.

Siebel Newsom says the new website is a free tool to get more companies to promote a culture of pay equity. The California Equal Pay Playbook advises companies and organizations through a step-by-step process to create a more equitable workplace. 

“This is all about making it super easy, no excuses, to pay women equitably, to value their work the way they value men’s work,” Siebel Newsom said.

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