Political Quotes

“What has happened to women? The gentlewoman from Georgia indicated that women were in fact beginning to improve, and that is true. But women have now been caught in the same spiral that has dragged men's wages down, and that is why we have really got to step up and take notice. Until the 1970's women came into the work force drawn there by rising real wages. In order words, they came into the work force because they could earn more money and they were drawn to the work force by virtue of the lure of greater income. Since the 1970's, there has been sluggish wage growth. Still they come. They come because they must. They come even though the wage gap for them, for the average one of them, is not closing. Now, it is very interesting, in the 1980's we did see a rather precipitous narrowing of the wage gap. It is not altogether clear why, but we do know this, that 50 percent of the gap remains unexplained. We believe that possible explanations may be occupational segregation, women's jobs versus men's jobs, you are in a woman's occupation. That has typically had low-wage discrimination.”