[KHTS] – April 8 is recognized across the nation as Equal Pay Day, a day set aside to raise awareness for the wage gap between men and women.

Robin Clough

President Barack Obama issued a proclamation on Tuesday, calling Americans to recognize “the full value of women’s skills and their significant contributions to the labor force.”

The Santa Clarita City Council also recognized the holiday, with a proclamation of their own.

The proclamation was requested by the Santa Clarita Branch of the American Association of University Women, which has been operating in the Santa Clarita Valley since 1968.

In the proclamation, the council expressed the city’s support for equal pay for women and for the Paycheck Fairness Act, which was introduced in the Senate in January.

The gender gap in salaries is both a national and a local issue, said Robin Clough, public policy chair for the Santa Clarita AAUW.

“It affects everyone,” she said. “What affects the nation affects us as a small community as well.”

Women still earn an average of 77 cents per dollar that men earn, according to the president’s proclamation.

“On National Equal Pay Day, we mark how far into the new year women would have to work to earn the same as men did in the previous year, and we recommit to making equal pay a reality,” Obama said. “…Over her lifetime, the average American woman can expect to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars to the earnings gap, a significant blow to both women and their families.”

This year is the first time that the city of Santa Clarita has officially recognized Equal Pay Day, and Clough said that the main goal is to raise awareness.

“I think if the awareness is brought to the attention of Santa Clarita, it will just spread from there,” she said, “as our women and our daughters in our community go out into the world.”

To read Obama’s full proclamation, click here.

The text of the city council’s proclamation is not available online, but learn more about the American Association of University Women on their website, here.