Thomas Daschle: “I wanted to call attention to the fact that yesterday, as we passed the important piece of legislation dealing with…”

“I wanted to call attention to the fact that yesterday, as we passed the important piece of legislation dealing with minimum wage, one of the issues that I do not think got the kind of attention that I had hoped it would receive, and really deserves, has to do with pensions and has to do with the significant new contribution we made to pension reform in the package of amendments that we added to the minimum wage bill. That legislation dealing with pensions has several categories, one of which is an issue which a number of our colleagues have expressed a great deal of concern about and are prepared to support in a series of amendments dealing with women's pension equity. There is a significant disparity among working people, between men and women, with regard to pension equity. Senator Boxer and Senator Moseley-Braun, in particular, added amendments to this package which would begin to address that disparity, which would begin to close the gap, the chasm, really, between men and women when it comes to pensions. I want to publicly commend them for their leadership and their willingness to work with all of us to find a way with which to begin making the effort to close that gap and to provide the kind of equity that I know all of our colleagues would like to achieve.”