National Equal Pay Day
Floor Speech
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my esteemed colleague from Maryland, who is here with a number of other people to talk about the need to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act to make sure that we end once and for all paycheck discrimination against women.
I think the American people believe very strongly in fairness, equal treatment, and a level playing field for everyone, because these are core American values. I think that is why people find it shocking and unacceptable that women in the United States continue to be denied equal pay for equal work.
More than half a century ago, President Kennedy signed into law the Equal Pay Act, yet today wage discrimination continues as an ugly reality across our Nation. Women earn only about 79 cents for every $1 men earn. It is a disparity that exists at all levels of education, in nearly every industry, across hundreds of occupations, from elite professionals to everyday blue-collar workers. There are complex factors that contribute to the gender pay gap, but according to a new study by the Joint Economic Committee, as much as 40 percent of the pay gap can be attributed to outright discrimination.
Probably, most people who have watched TV in the last couple of weeks have seen one particularly egregious example that has been cited, and that is the U.S. women's soccer team, whose members make only about one-quarter of what their male counterparts make. Both the women's and men's soccer teams work for the same employer, the U.S. Soccer Federation. The women's soccer team generates significantly more revenue than the men's team. It has won the Women's World Cup three times, including last year. It has been the Olympic champion four times and has been the world's top-ranked team for nearly two decades. Yet they are paid a quarter of what men make. It is hard to understand that under any circumstances except outright discrimination.
As outrageous as that case is, the wage gap is even more damaging to the 40 percent of American women who are sole or primary breadwinners in households with children, to the women who are waitresses and certified nursing assistants, and to secretaries who work at jobs where equal pay is not only about fairness but it is also about providing adequately for their families. It is about being able to afford Internet access so their kids can do their homework. It is about paying for their child's inhaler. There is a lot that women breadwinners can do with that extra $10,800 that women would earn on average if it were not for pay discrimination.
I also serve as the ranking member on the Senate's Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, and I have seen how similar gender gaps confront women-owned small businesses. Just as women on average are paid 21 percent less than men, a recent Commerce Department study found that the odds of businesses owned by women winning a Federal contract are about 21 percent lower than for otherwise similar companies--for male-owned enterprises.
In workplaces across America, women are speaking out more and more and are demanding equal pay. It is time for Congress to do our job as well. I know from experience that legislation can make a difference. As Governor, I signed a law to prohibit gender-based pay discrimination in New Hampshire and to require equal pay for equal work. We haven't made as much progress as I would like at this point, but at the time we signed that law, women in New Hampshire were making 69 percent of their male colleagues' wages. Today, they are making 76 percent or a little less than the national average.
Back in the early 1980s, I served on New Hampshire's Commission on the Status of Women. I chaired a report on employment in New Hampshire. At that time, women were only making 59 cents for every dollar a man earned. The conclusion of that report was that this has an impact not just on women, but it is an impact on, of course, their whole family. It is something that their children, their husbands, and their entire family is affected by. If we can close this pay gap for women, it helps not only the women who make up two-thirds of minimum wage workers, but it helps their families. It helps pull their kids out of poverty.
We need to do more at the Federal level, and that is why I strongly support the Paycheck Fairness Act. This legislation would empower women to negotiate for equal pay, it would close loopholes that courts created in the laws that are already in place, and it would create strong incentives for employers to obey these laws.
This legislation is about basic fairness. It is about equal treatment. It is about creating a level playing field in the workplace for our daughters and our granddaughters and for every American. It also is about making sure that their spouses, their children, and their relatives benefit from making sure that they have the same access to equal pay as the men in the workplace do.
So I urge my colleagues to support the Paycheck Fairness Act. Sixteen years into the 20th century is way past time to make good on our promise of equal pay for equal work in the United States.
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