Paycheck Fairness Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. OMAR. Madam Chair, I am honored to rise today to speak on H.R. 7, the Paycheck Fairness Act. I am proud to be part of a Congress that is finally taking action to close the gender pay gap. After so many years of inaction on this issue when our Republican colleagues were in the majority, I think it is fair to say that it is about time.

It is hard to imagine that, in this day and age, women could be paid less than a man for doing the same job. But it happens, and it happens often. Statistics show that pay disparity isn't a thing of the past; it is happening today. It isn't just holding women back; it is amplifying racial inequalities across the country.

We often hear the statistics that say women make 80 cents to every dollar that is paid to a man, but those figures are often worse for women of color. Black women are making only 61 cents on the dollar. For Latina women, that is 53 cents. For Native American women, it is 58 cents. Clearly, the pay gap is compounded by a racial gap.

It should be obvious to all of us that this problem extends beyond the workplace.

Madam Chair, you see the impact everywhere you look around our society. Women of color are less likely to have healthcare coverage. They are more likely to experience hunger. They are less likely to own a home or be fully prepared for retirement.

At the end of the day, those pennies on the dollar add up, and that loss of income is putting women of color at a serious disadvantage.

The Paycheck Fairness Act will take aggressive action to remedy these inequalities and tear down the economic barriers that women of color face. It will do that, in part, by ensuring the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has the information it needs to detect pay discrimination and to identify those additional cross-section biases.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. OMAR. Madam Chair, I am proud to introduce an amendment with my colleague, Representative Beyer from Virginia, that will ensure that the major employers are required to report that information to that commission. That will go a long way to finally ending the systemic barriers that women and women of color face in this country.

I thank Chair Scott and Chair DeLauro. I am really excited to be part of this change-making Congress.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source