Joe Baca: “when President John Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law on June 10, 1963, women on the average earned 61 cents for…”

“when President John Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law on June 10, 1963, women on the average earned 61 cents for each dollar earned by a man. Today, working women earn 73 cents for every dollar earned by a man, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. President Kennedy told his fellow citizens that he was taking the first step in addressing the unconscionable practice of paying female employees less wages than male employees for the same job. While progress has been made, still more needs to be done. If Congress acts this year, more can be achieved; and I say more can be achieved and will be achieved if we come together. In my State of California, families lose a staggering $21 billion of income annually to the wage gap. If women in California received equal pay, poverty and single-mom households would go from 19.2 percent to 9.2 percent. Women in the Inland Empire, for example, lose an average of $4,000 every year because of unequal pay, and I state because of unequal pay they lose that much; that is $4,000. This is money that cannot buy groceries, housing, child care, clothing for their families, and we must realize how important and critical it is when someone has to budget their dollars based on the amount of monies that they get paid.”