On the recordApril 8, 2014
I thank Senator Mikulski for her incredible leadership on this issue. I come to the floor today in support of equal pay for equal work. I honestly cannot believe we are still arguing over equal pay in 2014. Congress first moved to solve this problem more than 50 years ago when the Equal Pay Act was signed into law. In 1963 women were earning 59 cents on the dollar for every dollar earned by a man. Today women earn only 77 cents on the dollar compared to what a man earns. Women are taking a hit in nearly every occupation. Bloomberg analyzed census data and found that median earnings for women were lower than those for men in 264 out of 265 major occupational categories. In 99.6 percent of all occupations, men get paid more than women--99.6 percent. That is not an accident; that is discrimination. The effects of this discrimination are real and they are long lasting. Women, for example, borrow roughly the same amount of money as men to pay for college, but according to the American Association of University Women, these women make only 82 cents on the dollar compared with men 1 year after graduating. So women take out the same loans to go to college, but they face an even steeper road to repay those loans. Unequal pay also means a tougher retirement. The average woman in Massachusetts who collects Social Security will receive about $3,000 less each year than a similarly situated man because the benefits are tied to how much people earn while they are working.…
