The Honorable Donna F. Edwards
Women Deserve Equal Pay for Equal Work
April 9, 2014
Madam Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge as a simple fact that women deserve equal pay for equal work. Same job, same experience, same pay. But that is not happening.
On the aggregate, women earn just 77 cents on the dollar. For African American women, it is only 64 cents, and for Latinas, it is a staggering 54 cents on the dollar for every dollar earned by white men, white non-Hispanic men doing the same job.
As we know, the consequences are great. These pay gaps translate into a loss for African American women of more than $18,000 a year, and for Latinas, more than $24,000 a year that they lose to this pay gap.
Families increasingly rely on women’s wages to make ends meet. The pay gap is about our Nation’s overall economy, and it is about women’s retirement security.
The fact is that when women succeed, America succeeds, and it is time to address the pay and work-family balance disparities that affect women.
Some have said that the argument for equal pay for equal work is politics.
Well, Madam Speaker, it is not. It is about pay.
It is time for 25 courageous Republicans to step up and join 197 Democrats to end wage discrimination and give women what women have earned: equal pay for equal work.
