Political Quotes

“I come to the floor with my colleague from Minnesota and my colleague Senator Murray from Washington, along with our other colleagues who have already been here to speak about the important issue of paycheck fairness. It is truly shameful this kind of discrimination still exists. We have heard the statistics about what the pay gap means, but literally over someone's career--over a 40-year career--a woman in my state could lose as much as $500,000 in income. An Asian American woman could lose $700,000 over a 40-year career and a Native American woman could lose as much as $900,000 over the same time period. So, yes, when women are discriminated against, it costs them and their families. The gender pay gap issue is a family issue. Women are breadwinners too. Women today still earn only 79 cents for every $1 paid to a man. This means less food on the table, less money to buy clothing for their children, or less money for insurance premiums. What we need to do is make sure we are listening to these stories and taking action. Here is a story from one of my constituents, Adrianna from Olympia. She said: In 1993, when I was in college, I was working at a restaurant. . . . This job enabled me to pay my way through school with no student loans. A young man several years younger than me with less experience was making a larger wage and I found out about it. I politely confronted the owner as to why this fellow was making more money than me.…”