EQUAL PAY DAY PROMPTS NEW

CALL FOR PAY EQUITY LEGISLATION

            WASHINGTON (PAI)—Equal Pay Day, the day each year when median hourly wages for a working woman equal those of a working man in identical circumstances the year before, prompted renewed calls for pay equity legislation on Capitol Hill.

            Yet one prime author of those measures, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., acknowledged in a telephone press conference that her pay equity bill faces a hostile GOP-run U.S. House.

            Pay Equity Day was April 12.  Speakers in the telephone press conference marking it noted that a working woman, all other things being equal, still earned only 77 cents last year for every dollar a working man earned in identical circumstances. 

As a result, for the woman to equal the man’s wages from 2010, she had to toil that entire year and this year up until April 12 to match the figure.  Working African-American women and working Latina women earned far less compared to men.

“Equal Pay Day is a dubious milestone,” DeLauro said.  “Women are half of the workforce, are the sole breadwinner or co-breadwinner” in a huge majority of U.S. families “and make 80% of the consumer buying decisions” all while earning a lot less than their male counterparts.

The pay gap is immediate and crosses class lines.  A woman college graduate with the same qualifications, background and job as her male counterpart starts out 5% behind, speakers said.  After 10 years on the job, she’s 12% behind.

And the pay gap hurts women and families forever, speakers noted.  Lower pay equals lower pensions and a lower earnings base for Social Security benefits.

“This is not a new problem,” DeLauro said, noting Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower first raised it in 1956 and the federal Equal Pay Act passed in 1963. 

But that law does not protect people from employer retaliation if they discuss their wages with each other, and it does not award damages in pay discrimination cases, just back pay.  DeLauro’s legislation would put teeth in the 48-year-old law by adding those two provisions.   And it would close loopholes corporations use to avoid obeying the present law, said Bettina Graves of the National Women’s Law Center.

The Obama administration strongly backs pay equity legislation, including DeLauro’s bill, but the GOP-run House is another matter, she admitted: “I’m always hopeful I can get colleagues from the other side of the aisle.  I get paid the same as my male colleague from Montana.  It’s time other women were treated the same way.”  ###