DeLauro Celebrates Equal Pay Act’s 51st Anniversary

Calls for Passage of Paycheck Fairness Act to Remedy Ongoing Discrimination

NEW HAVEN, CT—Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) celebrated today’s 51st anniversary of the Equal Pay Act by calling on Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. The Paycheck Fairness Act is a key part of “When Women Succeed, America Succeeds: An Economic Agenda for Women and Families,” which DeLauro and her Democratic colleagues introduced last July.

“Fifty-one years ago, President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act to confront the ‘serious and endemic’ problem of unequal wages. But the problem still persists, with women making an average of 77 cents on the dollar for the same work as men. That hurts everyone, for when women bring home smaller paychecks than they have earned, their entire family has less money.

“For this reason and more, we need to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act again. It gives real teeth to existing law and holds employers accountable for discriminatory practices. It has passed the House of Representatives twice, a majority of the Senate has voted to make it law and President Obama has said he would sign it. It took 18 years for the Equal Pay Act to pass after its first introduction and I first introduced Paycheck Fairness 17 years ago. We are on the threshold, and American families cannot afford to wait any longer.”

The Paycheck Fairness Act requires employers to show pay disparity is truly related to job performance – not gender. It prohibits employer retaliation for sharing salary information with coworkers; under current law employers can punish employees for sharing such information. It also strengthens remedies for pay discrimination by increasing compensation women can seek, allowing them to not only seek back pay, but also punitive damages for pay discrimination.

The average 77 cent wage gap amounts to $11,084 over the year for women working full-time, compared to men working full-time. That $11,084 could purchase 89 more weeks of food, more than 3,000 additional gallons of gas, or more than one year of rent.