Political Quotes

“this special order on women, wages, and jobs comes during Women's History Month, but more pertinently it comes because finally the issue of declining wages in our country has made it onto the national agenda. The underlying discontent that has been there for two decades have come forward, and we see it in the Republican primaries. It is interesting that at least since the early 1980's many of us have been pointing to this un-American phenomenon where the stock market does well and people do poorly. Somehow or other it never caught on. There has been some attention paid to it as it affects men because the manufacturing sector has been so decimated as jobs have moved offshore. Now that the country is beginning to recognize that something different is happening, it is important that we look at all of those of whom something different is happening, and that is why I choose to raise it in relation to women. As a former chair of the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, I have long had an interest in discrimination against women. More is at work here than simple discrimination, however. What is at work here is the nature of our economy itself, some historic changes that are underway that reflect upon the kinds of jobs that are being produced and who gets those jobs. The effect is felt in the widest gap in incomes we have seen since we have been keeping these records.”