DeLauro Statement on Black Women’s Equal Pay Day

A video of her statement can be found here.

WASHINGTON, DC (August 22, 2019) – Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) today released a video on Black Women's Equal Pay Day. Below are her remarks as delivered:

Hello, this is Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro. Today is Black Women's Equal Pay Day: the day which symbolizes how far into the year black women need to work in order to catch up to what their male counterparts made in the previous year alone.

Black women on average earn 61 cents for every dollar that an average white man makes. That is outrageous. Women's work should be valued the same as men's—and women of color especially should not be so disproportionately affected by the gender wage gap.

Over the past twenty years, women have continued to make more and more of their family's income across all family types. In fact, many women have become the sole or co-breadwinner in their family, so this effects families and our entire economy.

The solution is simple: women and men in the same job deserve the same pay. That principle is at the core of my bill, the Paycheck Fairness Act. We passed Paycheck Fairness in the House of Representatives. But it is stalled in the Senate as Mitch McConnell refuses to even debate it on the Floor of the United States Senate.

Paycheck Fairness would make real progress in the fight to eliminate the gender wage gap by holding employers accountable for discrimination, ending the practice of pay secrecy, easing workers' ability to challenge pay discrimination, strengthening the available remedies for wronged employees, and prohibiting employers from asking about prospective employees' salary history.

We should not have to recognize days like this, which show the ongoing inequality in our country. But we must mark them in order to make progress. I will continue to fight for all women across the country until the Paycheck Fairness Act until it becomes the law of the land, and I hope you will join me in that fight.

Thank you.