Paycheck Fairness Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. ADAMS. Madam Chair, I want to thank Chairman Scott for his leadership and Representative DeLauro for bringing this bill to the floor.

I rise today in strong support of the Paycheck Fairness Act because, like Fannie Lou Hamer and Representative DeLauro, I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of paycheck inequity.

For three decades, from the North Carolina House to the United States Congress, I have been fighting to close the gender wage gap. As the new chair of the Education and Labor Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, I am very proud to support this bill. It takes the average woman an additional 91 days to earn what her male peers earned in 2018, and that is unacceptable.

In my district in North Carolina, women still only make about 82 cents for every dollar a man makes. It is even worse for women of color, who are even less likely to make as much as their male counterparts working the same job. Black women earn only 61 cents for every dollar a man makes; Hispanic women only 53 cents.

When we shortchange women, we shortchange our children, our families, and our economy. In fact, women are shortchanged $500 billion every year. Fifty-six years have passed since the Equal Pay Act was signed into law, and it has been 10 years since President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Yet, our work remains unfinished. Today, the U.S. House of Representatives speaks loud and clear, and we will no longer wait while women continue to do the same work and not get the same pay. The time is up for that.

Madam Chair, I include in the Record a letter from AFSCME which states that the Paycheck Fairness Act is integral to ensuring women earn the same amount as men for equal work.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source