--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: This is a wonderful day. Just after taking office in 2009, President Barack Obama signed his first bill into law. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act. And it was named after the woman who was standing just behind him.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of President Obama speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Now, Lily Ledbetter did not set out to be a trailblazer or a household name. She was just a good hard worker who did her job. And she did it well.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Lily Ledbetter speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Ledbetter used to work at a tire factory in Alabama. But after about two decades at the company, she discovered that she was being paid significantly less than her male co-workers. So she sued her employer. She set out on a journey that would take more than 10 years take her all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, and lead to this day and this bill, which will help others get the justice that she was denied.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Lily Ledbetter speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 was the most significant bill to address pay discrimination in decades. And it's still the only federal law passed this century to tackle the issue.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of President Obama speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Lily Ledbetter died on Saturday at the age of 86, and she'll be remembered as having played a major role in the fight for pay equity.
--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knutson.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: I'm Jessica Mendoza.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It's Thursday, October 17th.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a news anchor speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Coming up on the show, the legacy of Lily Ledbetter and the continued fight for equal pay.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a news anchor speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: CRM was supposed to improve customer relationships. Instead, it's shorthand for can't resolve much, Which means you may have sunk a fortune into software that just bounces customer issues around but never actually solves them.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a company spokesperson speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: On the ServiceNow AI platform, CRM stands for something better. With AI built into one platform, customers aren't mired in endless loops of automated indifference. They get what they need, when they need it.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a company spokesperson speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Bad CRM was then. This is ServiceNow.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a company spokesperson speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Optimism isn't sunshine and rainbows. It's fixing things. Changing the way we fix things. It's running the world on smarter energy. Because if optimism never stops, then change can't either.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a company spokesperson speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: GE Vernova, the energy of change.
--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Lily Ledbetter was born in 1938 in the small rural town of Possum Trot, Alabama. Her father worked at a U.S. Army depot. He was fixing engines and tanks, and her mother was a homemaker.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Joseph de Avila speaking]
--:-- Joseph de Avila: That's right. She was one of a few women that were working at Goodyear Tire at the time.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Ledbetter got married and started working in her senior year of high school. First, she worked at General Electric, and eventually ended up as a supervisor at Goodyear Tires in 1979.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Lily Ledbetter speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Years later, she spoke about her excitement at getting the Goodyear job. I had six different interviews and was accepted for the job and was thrilled beyond belief. I could not believe it.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Lily Ledbetter speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: She wrote a memoir about her life back in 2012, and she described this barrage of sexual harassment that she faced at work.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Lily Ledbetter speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And she described in her book some of the different things that had happened to her where one male co-worker called her Goodyear's mistake.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Lily Ledbetter speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And during a performance review in 1981, her supervisor suggested that she sleep with him in order to get a better review.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Lily Ledbetter speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Despite the discrimination she said she faced at work, Ledbetter stayed on at Goodyear Tires for nearly 20 years.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Lily Ledbetter speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Then one day, a piece of paper changed everything. So a few months before she would eventually retire, she found an anonymous note in her mailbox. And the note had her monthly salary written on it and the monthly salary of other male employees.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Lily Ledbetter speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Ledbetter has talked about this note in speeches and interviews over the years. Here she is in 2018. My job was exactly like those three men. My pay was 40% less than either one of those men.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Lily Ledbetter speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I was devastated. I was humiliated. I didn't know how I'd get through the night.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Lily Ledbetter speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: These were her peers and basically doing the same work that she was. And if she had been paid on a similar scale throughout her whole career she would have been paid more than she actually had.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Joseph de Avila speaking]
--:-- Joseph de Avila: That's our colleague Joseph de Avila.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: In 1999, a year after she retired, Ledbetter filed a pay discrimination lawsuit against Goodyear under the Civil Rights Act. And she initially won this case. She was awarded more than $3 million.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a lawyer speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But Goodyear appealed, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. And what did Goodyear say in that appeal? Goodyear raised the issue of the statute of limitations. They argued that her claim fell outside of the statute of limitations and shouldn't have been allowed to be brought.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a lawyer speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: At the time, the statute of limitation on pay discrimination cases was 180 days from the first act of discrimination. In Ledbetter's case... That would have been 1979. If she wanted to be successful, she would have had to have discovered she was being paid less, and she would have to have brought that suit back when she was initially hired.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a lawyer speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The case made its way up to the Supreme Court. And in 2007, the court ruled 5-4 against Ledbetter and in Goodyear's favor.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a lawyer speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The Supreme Court agreed that the statute of limitations was the main issue here, and didn't really take up the merits of the case itself and ruled 5-4 that Ledbetter had brought this lawsuit too late, two decades late.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a lawyer speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: That's really remarkable because it feels like it takes quite a while for you to figure out and gather evidence that you're being discriminated against. And 180 days seems like a very short amount of time.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a lawyer speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Yes, it was a very short amount of time. This short amount of time was part of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dissent. She wrote, quote, Pay disparities often occur, as they did in Ledbetter's case, in small increments.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a lawyer speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Cause to suspect that discrimination is at work develops only over time.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a lawyer speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: She continued, The court's approbation of these consequences is totally at odds with the robust protection against workplace discrimination.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a lawyer speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Ledbetter had lost, but she didn't stop fighting. So she went to Washington. She started talking to lawmakers, and what she was really pushing for was a loosening of the statute of limitations to give people the chance to sue and not have it to be within this very tight, narrowly defined window of time.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a politician speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Ledbetter started lobbying for legislation that could change the statute for cases like hers. The bill she advocated for said workers could sue 180 days after their most recent paycheck.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a politician speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And so workers that were initially unaware that they were unlawfully paid less than they deserve, they're still able to legally challenge that discriminatory pay when they discover it.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a politician speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But she ran into opposition from Republicans. What was sort of their position on it? Why were they so against it?
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a politician speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Some said the bill was moving too fast. Others said that this could lead to frivolous lawsuits.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Lily Ledbetter speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: How did Ledbetter respond to those criticisms? She tried to persuade them in telling them this wasn't really a partisan issue, that this was a fair wage issue, that women deserved fair pay for their work.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a politician speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And this was one way to help make some improvements in this area.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a politician speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The bill eventually passed, mainly supported by Democrats. But eventually, some Republicans got on board, including all four female Republican senators.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of President Obama speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: When Obama signed it into law, he praised Ledbetter as a trailblazer.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Lily Ledbetter speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: She knew it was too late for her, that this bill wouldn't undo the years of injustice she faced or restore the earnings she was denied. But this grandmother from Alabama kept on fighting because she was thinking about the next generation.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Lily Ledbetter speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: After the law was passed, Lily Ledbetter became somewhat of a star in pushing for fair wages. She spoke at the 2008 and 2012 Democratic National Convention where she discussed her fight and her experience and why fair wages were important.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Lily Ledbetter speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: We decided to fight for our family and for your family, too. We sought justice because equal pay for equal work is an American value. That fight took me 10 years.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Lily Ledbetter speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And her message to women was to basically try to inform yourself and learn as much as you can and use what you learn to make sure that you're paid fairly.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of Lily Ledbetter speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And she's always advocated for women to take that fight on and also look out for themselves.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a news anchor speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Ledbetter died on Saturday, October 12th from a respiratory illness. It was 15 years after the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was signed into law.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a news anchor speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: How much impact has it had on fair pay? That after the break.
--:-- [Theme music fades in]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: This episode is brought to you by Walmart. Did you know that Walmart is one of Fortune 100's best companies to work for in 2025?
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a company spokesperson speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It's no surprise. Walmart is investing $1 billion in training and development to help associates build lasting careers with or without a degree.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a company spokesperson speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: In fact, 75% of Walmart management started in hourly roles. With benefits like health care, paid parental leave, and tuition support, Walmart isn't just a place to work. It's a place to grow.
--:-- [Sound effects: A brief clip of a company spokesperson speaking]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Learn more at walmart.com slash spark.
--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: This episode is brought to you by Indeed. When your fridge stops working, you don't sit around waiting for all your food to spoil. You find a solution.
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--:-- Ryan Knutson: And it truly does make a difference. Sponsored Jobs receive 45% more applications than non-sponsored jobs, according to Indeed data.
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--:-- Ryan Knutson: Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash journal.
--:-- [Theme music fades in]
--:-- Lauren Weber: Why is there a gender pay gap to start with? Oh, well, should we talk about patriarchy? That's a big question.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Our colleague Lauren Weber writes about the workplace, and part of what she covers is the gender pay gap.
--:-- Lauren Weber: This is a topic that I've covered on and off for the 13 years that I've been on this beat.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It comes up occasionally when there's a lawsuit that brings it to the forefront.
--:-- Lauren Weber: And more than anything, it's just, it's a persistent problem that we haven't yet fixed.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And both companies and legislators, I think, are continually, ideally looking for solutions.
--:-- Lauren Weber: According to Lauren, there are two ways of looking at the gender pay gap. One is a statistic put out by the Labor Department.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: A statistic that people are probably familiar with is that women are paid 84 cents on the dollar compared with men.
--:-- Lauren Weber: That's looking in the aggregate. So you're looking at all women working full time year round compared to all men working full time year round.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Fifteen years ago, when the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was passed, it was 80 cents on the dollar. So since then, it has only improved four cents.
--:-- Lauren Weber: And when the data is broken down by race, the pay gap is even larger for Black and Latino women.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But Lauren says this statistic is too broad to see some real progress on gender pay.
--:-- Lauren Weber: And it glosses over some important nuance, including that women are more likely to work in lower-paying careers.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So, for example, I did a story earlier this year based on some labor department statistics that showed that 97% of all preschool and kindergarten teachers are women.
--:-- Lauren Weber: 80% of all surgeons are men.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So that's just, you know, two stark examples that show how people kind of sort themselves into different jobs.
--:-- Lauren Weber: And women typically are more highly represented in lower paying jobs.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: A different way to look at it, which is probably more relevant for people in their own lives, is apples to apples.
--:-- Lauren Weber: Like, if I'm a woman and I'm working as a reporter or as an attorney or as a manager of a retail store, am I making the same amount or a comparable amount as a man with the same job?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: For example, surgeons. Depending on how you compare it, the pay gap is as little as 92 cents to a dollar.
--:-- Lauren Weber: How would you describe the gender pay gap that exists in the second bucket that we're talking about?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Yeah, in the apples to apples, I would actually say we've made a fair amount of progress in that.
--:-- Lauren Weber: And I think Lily Ledbetter has something to do with that.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Still, Lauren says sexism continues to play a role in decisions about pay.
--:-- Lauren Weber: And that's made the pay gap difficult to address.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Often there's an assumption that women bring in a second income in a family.
--:-- Lauren Weber: So maybe there's less of a feeling that, well, you know, we've got to pay a family sustaining wage to this person, even if they're doing the same work as the guy sitting at the desk next to them.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And are women still penalized for being mothers?
--:-- Lauren Weber: Oh yeah.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: There a lot of clear evidence that women are still penalized for being mothers.
--:-- Lauren Weber: And there a lot of evidence that women are paid less after they have children because of an assumption that they not going to work as hard.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Maybe they won't stay in the workforce as long.
--:-- Lauren Weber: Maybe they're going to be taking more time off.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Whereas there's a premium for men.
--:-- Lauren Weber: It's called the fatherhood premium. When they have children, they tend to earn more.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Since the Ledbetter Act, there haven't been any other federal laws addressing the pay gap.
--:-- Lauren Weber: But there has been action at the state and local levels.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Beginning today, employers across New York state will have to disclose proposed pay rates.
--:-- Lauren Weber: A new law coming soon here in California involves employers being transparent to prospective workers about how much money they can be paid if they get the job.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: All workers should be paid fairly for the value of their work. It is now the law in Colorado.
--:-- Lauren Weber: You know, in about 10 different states and also a handful of cities now, employers, when they post jobs, they have to include a salary range.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So you go into it, As a job seeker, as somebody interviewing for a job, already armed with a lot more information than you used to have.
--:-- Lauren Weber: It's giving you more information where, as an individual, I can now advocate better for myself.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I can, you know, question the compensation decisions and say, well, you know, how come I'm at the lower end of this range and I'm not in the middle or the higher range?
--:-- Lauren Weber: Some of the biggest progress has taken place within companies, partly because they want to be seen as fair and equitable.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Another watershed moment in the move towards equal pay was in 2015 when the company Salesforce announced that it had conducted a pay equity audit and it was going to spend $3 million to adjust the salaries, mostly of women, but also of some men, to drive more equity within its own compensation practices.
--:-- Lauren Weber: It was almost like an earthquake in this movement towards pay equity.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: First of all, it was a big, well-respected company coming forward and saying, we were making mistakes in our compensation.
--:-- Lauren Weber: They put real money into fixing it.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: That became kind of an example for a lot of other companies to go ahead and do the same thing.
--:-- Lauren Weber: And now we're at a point, and I think the latest statistics I saw were from 2021, where about 60% of companies conduct pay equity audits.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And I think that is partly because companies realize that they're on notice.
--:-- Lauren Weber: I think they are genuinely, for the most part, not exclusively, but for the most part, trying to get ahead of that and do the right thing.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So with all that said, how far do you think we've come? And what is Lily Ledbetter's legacy?
--:-- Lauren Weber: You know, as a journalist, I'm hardwired to be very skeptical, but I think this is one area where I see a lot of progress.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The Lilly Ledbetter Act and her whole story, her incredible story, I think really did put companies on notice.
--:-- Lauren Weber: For one thing, the act itself meant that the statute of limitations changed.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So I think companies couldn't quite hide behind a statute of limitations.
--:-- Lauren Weber: And I think it also empowered people to start talking a little bit more about their salary.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And so just bringing some more transparency to that in how people, how individuals themselves are maybe more inclined to talk about this among themselves.
--:-- Lauren Weber: Going forward, what do you think Lily Ledbetter would want to see in this fight to close the gender pay gap?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I would say it's accountability and transparency.
--:-- Lauren Weber: I think Lily Ledbetter would want to see 100% of companies do pay equity analyses.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It is not a panacea. It doesn't definitively fix the problem.
--:-- Lauren Weber: But, I mean, as long as companies are willing to not only do the analysis, but then make the adjustments and correct people's pay when they see a problem, You know, that's, I think she'd want to see every company trying to do that.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And I think she'd want to see women talking to each other about their pay and men and women talking to each other.
--:-- Lauren Weber: We need to have men participating in this conversation.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: That's all for today, Thursday, October 17th.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal.
--:-- [Theme music fades in]
--:-- Ryan Knutson: If you like our show, follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Jessica Mendoza: We're out every weekday afternoon.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.
--:-- [Theme music continues to play]
