Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I want to start by thanking my colleague, Senator Mikulski, for her leadership in the fight for equal pay for equal work. It has been 50 years since the signing of the Equal Pay Act. But despite how far women have come, despite all the progress women have made and the ways women contribute across our economy, women still only make 79 cents on the dollar. The gap is even wider for women of color: for African-American women, 60 cents on the dollar; for Native American women, 59 cents on the dollar; and for Hispanic women, 55 cents on the dollar.

This status quo is not only deeply unfair to women, but it is also bad for families and it is bad for our economy because today 60 percent of working families rely on wages from two earners. We have to do better. That is why I was so pleased when earlier this year the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission took a very important step in the right direction with a modest proposal to collect pay data on a form that employers already submit in order to accomplish one goal--making sure that we have solid information about how employers pay their male and female workers.

This proposal is pretty straightforward. It brings new and much needed transparency to workplaces and might even help businesses address pay gaps that they weren't even aware existed. It would also make enforcement of pay discrimination laws more effective and efficient. Especially when it comes to an issue like wage discrimination, I would like to think it would be hard to argue against more transparency and more effective enforcement because when women are not getting equal pay for equal work, we should be able to find out about it and we should be able to fix it.

It is disappointing that Republicans in both the House and the Senate are opposing that proposal. That is absolutely the wrong approach. What makes this even more surprising is that just weeks ago I was very proud to stand right here to introduce a resolution in the Senate calling for equal pay for equal work for the U.S. women's national soccer team. It was a resolution that recognized the impact of the wage gap on women and the need to fix it, and it passed by voice vote.

Given that the Senate was able to agree on the seriousness of this problem, I would like to give all my colleagues an opportunity today to take another step forward--not backward--on equal pay for equal work. I have filed an amendment that would provide much needed new resources to ensure this important proposal can be implemented and finalized as quickly as possible. I urge our colleagues to support the amendment and oppose efforts by some in the Republican Party to stand in the way of better information and enforcement on pay equity.

It should go without saying, but if a woman still isn't getting equal pay in the 21st century, she deserves to know and she deserves action. This rule would take critical steps in the right direction for women, families, and our country as a whole, and I hope that our Republican colleagues will not stand in its way.

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