Political Quotes

“today I am proud to support two important workplace civil rights bills addressing pay discrimination-- the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act. In the years since the 1963 Equal Pay Act, women have made enormous advances toward economic equality. However, the goal of ``equal pay for equal work'' is not yet reality. Today, the average full-time working woman earns only 78 cents for every $1 a man makes. Women of color are worse off. African-American women make 69 cents on the dollar, while Hispanic women make only 56 cents. A recent study of college graduates showed that in their first year after graduation, women earned only 80 percent as much as male graduates, demonstrating the gender pay disparities only compound over time. These pay disparities equal a significant loss of income--anywhere from $400,000 to $2 million over a lifetime--which has a tremendous impact on lives of women and their families, especially as so many are struggling with the economic turndown. In 2007, the Supreme Court made it virtually impossible for victims of pay discrimination to go to court to vindicate their rights, holding that any challenges to pay discrimination must be filed within 180 days of an employer's initial decision to discriminate.”