(This is a guest blog post by Rep. Marcia Fudge, Education and Labor Committee Member.)

On this Equal Pay Day 2009, we must commit to achieving equal pay for all Americans.  Today, April 28, marks the point in 2009 when the average woman's wages will finally catch up with the wages paid to the average man in 2008.

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law. Progress has been slow during the forty-six years since passage of the Act.  After four decades, Americans continue to be unfairly compensated for the work they perform every day of their lives.

When the Equal Pay Act was signed into law, women working full-time and year-round earned an average of 59 cents for every dollar earned by men.  In 2007, women made 78 cents for every dollar earned by men. Today, the wage gap has only narrowed by less than half a cent per year.

The impact of income disparity is communal.  Equal pay is not just a women’s issue, it’s a family issue.  The current wage gap hurts everyone.  It lowers family income for essentials such as groceries, doctors’ visits, and child care.  When women earn more, families benefit.  Closing the wage gap is an integral part of strengthening American families and providing hope for a better future.

On January 29, 2009, President Obama took the first step by signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law to restore employee rights to challenge unlawful pay discrimination. 

The Paycheck Fairness Act, passed by the House on January 9, 2009, would take further steps to ensure that gender-based pay discrimination does not occur in the first place by closing the loopholes that have allowed employers to avoid responsibility for discriminatory pay.  A comprehensive update to the 46-year-old Equal Pay Act, the Paycheck Fairness Act puts gender-based discrimination sanctions on equal footing with other forms of wage discrimination, such as race, disability or age. It creates a new grant program to help strengthen the negotiation skills of girls and women.  And it creates strong incentives for employers to equally compensate workers while strengthening correlating federal enforcement efforts.

I stand in support of equal pay for all.  I look forward to the day when equal pay is a firm reality and not a tenuous goal. 

http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2009/04/rep-marcia-fudge-we-must-commi.shtml

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