Kamala Harris hosts US women footballers on Equal Pay Day

US President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other administration officials marked Equal Pay Day with a Tuesday afternoon event attended by members of the women's football team.

The event is part of a series of steps the Biden administration is taking that are aimed at ending the gender pay gap for federal workers and contractors.

Mr Biden was set to sign an executive order later on Tuesday that encourages the government to consider banning federal contractors from seeking information about job applicants’ prior salary history, while a new Labour Department directive aims to strengthen federal contractors’ obligations to audit payrolls and help guard against pay disparities based on gender, race or ethnicity.

The US women's national team celebrates winning the SheBelieves Cup soccer tournament in Boca Raton, Florida. AFP

The Office of Personnel Management is also considering a regulation to address the use of prior salary history in hiring and setting compensation for federal workers.

Equal Pay Day is designed to call attention to how much longer women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year.

Data show that while the pay gap is at its smallest ever, the coronavirus pandemic has altered women's labour force participation so that “what we're seeing is an artificial narrowing”, said Jasmine Tucker, director of research at the National Women's Law Centre.

Last October, the administration issued a national gender strategy to advance women's and girls' full participation in society.

This year, the administration is looking for new ways to combat pay disparities and drawing attention to high-profile efforts to combat the wage gap, such as the women's national football team's $24 million February