DELAURO MARKS EQUAL PAY DAY BY NOTING WOMEN’S ECONOMIC INSECURITY

Washington, DC – On Equal Pay Day, a day which symbolizes how far into 2012 women must work in order to make what their male counterparts made in 2011, Congresswoman DeLauro issued the following statement.

"Each year, Equal Pay Day provides a reminder of the persistent inequities that women face in the workforce. The gender gap in wages, where women make only 77 cents for every dollar earned by their male colleagues, threatens women and families' financial stability. At a time when record numbers of women are in poverty and women's economic recovery is markedly slow, these inequities serve as additional barriers to women's immediate and long-term economic security. In 2009, we took an important step toward addressing these inequities by passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which kept the courthouse door open for victims of pay discrimination to pursue legal recourse. This was a crucial victory, but we must continue the fight to curb discrimination by passing ‘The Paycheck Fairness Act' into law.

The Paycheck Fairness Act would close longstanding loopholes in the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and stiffen penalties for employers who discriminate based on gender. Employers would be required to show that pay disparities among employees doing the same job are not sex-based. Employees would be protected against employer retaliation for sharing salary information with their co-workers to better expose inequity. In sum, the Paycheck Fairness Act would provide the transparency needed for real progress to be made in closing the wage gap between women and men.

I have introduced the Paycheck Fairness Act in every Congress since 1997 and it has twice passed the United States House of Representatives. Being sure that women receive equal pay for equal work should not be a partisan issue, and it is time that the Paycheck Fairness Act becomes law."