Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to strongly support your bill to protect older Americans against discrimination. It is unfortunate, Mr. Speaker, but age discrimination and ageism are still very common in many American workplaces. During the worst of this pandemic, older workers and women experienced many of the demotions and layoffs that we have heard about so much. Protections against age discrimination are more important than ever as we seek to ensure that employers do not use someone's age as a motivating factor to deny them a promotion, to demote them, or to even fire them. When age discrimination occurs, many people do not report it. But when they do, under current law, it is incredibly difficult to prove that age was the motivating factor. Therefore, Congress must ensure that we do not place burdensome requirements of proof of age discrimination on those who actually bring age discrimination claims to the forefront. That is why this bill is so very, very important, and I thank the chairman for his tireless efforts on this cause. While this is an excellent bill, there is one provision I wish we had included that currently is not. In the fight against age discrimination, we need to clearly protect folks at the very first opportunity, the hiring process. That is why I introduced a bill last week, the Protect Older Job Applicants Act. It simply clarifies that the provisions under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act also apply to job applicants.…”