Ivanka Trump actually leading her dad's effort to pay women less

Ivanka Trump is spearheading a Trump administration initiative to repeal rules put in place by President Barack Obama to combat the pay gap between men and women.

The move is just the latest in a series of actions by Ivanka showing that, despite media reports, she is shoulder-to-shoulder with her father and his advocacy for a right-wing policy agenda.

In 2016, Obama proposed the rule, which would require business owners to document worker pay alongside information about their gender, race, and ethnicity. The idea behind the policy was to amass data to highlight pay gaps among minority groups, which would then be collected and reported on by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

But now Ivanka — who claims to be an advocate for working women — has come out in favor of undoing the initiative. In doing so, she gives cover to those who have consistently down played our outright denied that pay gaps between genders and races even exist.

Women in the United States earn on average 80 cents for every dollar earned by men. The disparity is even more stark for women of color. Black women earn 63 cents for every dollar earned by white men, while Latino women earn 54 cents for the same labor.

Ivanka Trump doesn’t care.

“While I believe the intention was good and agree that pay transparency is important,” she said in a statement, “the proposed policy would not yield the intended results.” She added, “We look forward to continuing to work with EEOC, [the Office of Management and Budget], Congress and all relevant stakeholders on robust policies aimed at eliminating the gender wage gap.”

But someone who truly understands the issue says that Ivanka Trump is full of it. Jenny Yang, former chairwoman of the EEOC, told a conference, “Having pay data in summary form will also help us identify patterns that may warrant further investigation.” Investigations of pay disparities would lead to remedies for those disparities, and help women, minorities, and others.

Ivanka Trump doesn’t want to help.

Despite media reports based largely on leaks from her, her husband, and those sympathetic to them, she has shown time and again that she is disinterested in anything but helping to solidify her father’s political power. Her PR machine’s labeling of her as a “moderating influence” on her dad is nonsense in practice.

Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris climate agreement and proposed a ban on transgender military service with nary a peep from his daughter. When her father was calling white supremacists and anti-Semites “very fine people,” she couldn’t be bothered to say anything.

She was, however, happy to sit in the seat reserved for the U.S. president at the G20 conference.

Her actions indicate a fondness for the trappings of power and pushing her father’s agenda, but not doing a single thing to help anybody but herself and the Trump clan.