Paycheck Fairness Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chair, I thank my friend for yielding.

I have left the chair, where I had been presiding, to speak on my bill, which is included in H.R. 7. My bill is Pay Equity for All, to bar an employer from asking about a person's prior pay.

Mr. Chair, I want to thank all of you who have led this bill to where we are today. I also am very much for the bill in which my bill is included, H.R. 7, which includes class actions, for example, the clarification for which has been most needed.

Expanding this bill is personal for me. I was the first woman to chair the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and enforce the Equal Pay Act, expanding it during my term at the commission.

I, therefore, am very grateful to my good friend Rosa DeLauro, a great champion of equal pay, for including my Pay Equity for All Act in this bill.

Mr. Speaker, many employers may not recognize that they are discriminating against women because they may not intentionally do so. But setting wages based on salary history is routinely done in the workplace, perhaps even by some in the Congress, and it reinforces the wage gap and may be the most important reason for the persistence of the wage gap that we have been unable to unlock.

What it means is that historically disadvantaged groups--women and minorities in particular--often start their careers with unfair and artificially low wages compared to their White male counterparts. This then gets imbedded--this discrimination--and compounded throughout their careers, so they never catch up with their male counterparts.

Job offers ought to be based on an applicant's skill and merit, not past salary or salary history.

My bill keeps an employer from asking applicants for their salary history or their salary in the last job during the interview process or as a condition of employment.

One study has shown, if you don't ask this question, wages are set at 9 percent higher. Therefore, this bill is a very important component of bridging the wage gap.

Ms. FOXX of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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