Calif. gives raises to reduce gender pay gap
By Alexei Koseff, Sacramento Bee
Capping a yearlong assessment of pay equity among its ranks, the California Senate late last year gave 10 percent raises to 71 employees to shrink a lingering gap between what male and female employees earn.
The raises, which total about $602,000 annually, followed the passage of a 2015 law expanding California’s equal-pay protections and a Sacramento Bee investigation that found persistent gender inequities on the Capitol payroll.
Though the new law did not apply to the Legislature, Dan Reeves, chief of staff to Senate leader Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, said the Senate wanted to “show other businesses” that they could pay men and women equally for similar work and still “be successful.”