The Obama administration is taking action to close the wage gap between male and female workers, advancing measures that will help ensure equal pay for women.

On Friday, President Obama unveiled new rules that would mandate companies with over 100 employees provide the federal government with annual data on how much they pay their workers based on gender, race and ethnicity, reports The New York Times. The move is part of the president's campaign promise to crack down on firms that pay women less for doing the same work as their male counterparts.

That information would then be used to help enforce equal pay laws, while offering insight into discriminatory pay practices. The new rules also mark Obama's latest effort to use executive power to address an issue that has been hampered by the Republican-controlled Congress.

"The notion that we would somehow be keeping my daughters ... any of your daughters out of opportunity, not allowing them to thrive in any field, not allowing them to fully participate in every human endeavor, that's counterproductive," Obama said at a White House press conference, reports NBC News.

Under Obama's proposal, salary information for more than 63 million employees would be tracked by the government to help determine where women are being shortchanged.

"Too often, pay discrimination goes undetected because of a lack of accurate information about what people are paid," said Jenny Yang, the chairwoman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. "We will be using the information that we're collecting as one piece of information that can inform our investigations."

According to a White House brief released Friday, women in 2014 earned 79 cents for every $1 that a man earned in a full-time job. However, the gap is even larger for Latina workers. Latinas in the U.S are paid, on average, just 55 cents for every dollar paid to white men, according to a report published by the National Partnership for Women & Families last month. The disparity has jeopardized female economic security and the families of underpaid workers.

During the conference, Obama also renewed his call to Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would potentially close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The update would require employers prove that pay gaps are due to legitimate business reasons, not the result of discrimination.