On the recordNovember 17, 2010
I rise today to speak on the Paycheck Fairness Act, a critically important bill to guarantee women equal pay for equal work. I am proud to lead the effort in the Senate to pass this legislation, which my dear friend and colleague Rosa DeLauro has already shepherded through the House of Representatives. I am pleased that the Senate is finally considering this commonsense legislation and am grateful to the majority leader for his strong support and his recognition of how important this bill is to American families. Americans must be assured of equity in the workplace. Unfortunately, the fundamental principle of equal pay for equal work has yet to be realized in this country. In my view, it is high time that Congress step in to remedy this injustice. Despite passage of the Equal Pay Act over 40 years ago, which was intended to ensure that women are paid the same as their male counterparts, a large wage gap still persists. Women are paid, on average, just 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. To put it another way, the pay gap means that the average woman is paid more than $10,000 less per year than she deserves. The gap is even larger in the African American and Hispanic communities, with black women earning 70 cents and Hispanic women earning merely 67 cents for every dollar a man earns. In my view, it is an outrage that in the year 2010 we are still not treating women as equals in the workplace.
