The main legislative vehicle for ending the gender pay gap failed to pass Congress during the Joe Biden presidency's final two years.

The Paycheck Fairness Act would have limited employers' legal defenses against gender-based pay-discrimination lawsuits to only "bona fide job-related factors." It would have further protected workers from retaliation when they complain about pay discrimination and it would have increased civil penalties for employers that breached the rules. Critics warned of widespread lawsuits against businesses if the act had passed. 

During the current Congress, neither the House or Senate versions of the Paycheck Fairness Act advanced, despite being co-sponsored by 220 House members and 51 senators. In the House, only one Republican co-sponsored the measure (Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick), and Republicans used their majority to prevent the bill from advancing. In the Senate, 60 senators would have been required to advance the measure to a floor vote.

Meanwhile, the gender wage gap, as measured by the U.S. Census Bureau, has remained stuck under Biden, with women earning about 84% of what men earn. A Pew Research Center study with a somewhat different methodology than the Census Bureau's found the gap at 82%, an improvement of just 2 percentage points compared with where the gap stood 20 years earlier. 

The Biden administration enacted some policies directed at the federal workforce, including an Office of Personnel Management rule requiring 80 federal agencies to stop considering nonfederal pay history when determining federal employees' salaries.

However, federal employees account for less than 2% of the overall workforce, so their reach is limited.

We rate this Promise Broken.

Legislation to curb gender-based pay discrimination quickly passed in the House after President Joe Biden's inauguration in 2021, but it made no further progress in the Senate.

The Paycheck Fairness Act, sponsored by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and backed by Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign, passed the House on April 15, 2021. The near party-line vote was 217-210.

The measure would have limited employers' legal defense against gender-based pay-discrimination lawsuits to only "bona fide job-related factors." It would have strengthened protections for workers from being retaliated against when they complain about pay discrimination. And it also increased civil penalties for employers' violations, among other provisions.

However, a companion bill in the Senate never moved out of committee and is poised to die at the conclusion of the current session at the end of this year.

The Senate version, sponsored by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., had the support of the other 49 Democratic senators. But in a chamber where 60 votes are typically required to break a filibuster and move to a final vote, Republican opposition stymied the bill. 

No Republican co-sponsored the measure in the Senate. In the House, only one Republican, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, voted for it. Critics of the legislation cited the possibility of widespread lawsuits against businesses. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it "strongly opposes" the bill. 

Now that Republicans won enough seats in the midterm elections to take control of the House, the bill's chances in that chamber are effectively dead for the next two years. And while Democrats still control the Senate, their failure to pass the measure during Biden's first two years in office suggests that winning enough Republican support to break a filibuster is unlikely.

We rate this promise Stalled.

The House has passed pay equality legislation backed by Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign, but the bill now faces a difficult road in the Senate.

As a presidential candidate, Biden endorsed the Paycheck Fairness Act, the measure that came to a vote in the House on April 15. 

That bill, sponsored by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., would limit an employer's legal defense against gender-based pay-discrimination lawsuits to "bona fide job-related factors." It would also strengthen non-retaliation protections for workers who complain about pay discrimination and increase civil penalties for employers' violations, among other provisions.

"We must enact the Paycheck Fairness Act to both close the worsening pay gap and protect and empower women as they reenter the job force," DeLauro said in introducing her bill. "This legislation is long overdue."

Republicans expressed concerns about the bill from the start. When the bill was being considered by the House Education and Labor Committee, the panel's senior Republican, Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, called it "a dangerous bill that will allow trial lawyers to fleece business owners around the country."

In addition, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an influential business lobbying group, sent a letter to House members before the vote saying it "strongly opposes" the bill.

In the end, the bill passed, 217-210, on a near-party-line basis. One Republican, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, joined all Democrats in support.

The Senate has not yet taken any formal actions on the bill.

Under current rules, legislation needs the backing of 60 senators to proceed to a vote in the Senate. This means that Democrats would need to secure the support of 10 Republicans to move to final consideration. In today's highly polarized political environment, that will not be easy.

We'll watch to see what happens. Because the bill passed the House, we move this promise to In the Works.