Congressman Cohen Statement on Equal Pay Day
Statement
Congressman Cohen Statement on Equal Pay Day
Today, in honor of Equal Pay Day, Congressman Cohen made the following statement:
The 111th Congress has made achieving equal pay for women one our top priorities, and we can already celebrate two remarkable accomplishments during this term: the passage and enactment of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the House's passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act.
S.181, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, was the first major bill signed by President Obama, and it restores the rights of women and other workers to challenge unfair pay. This bill is key for women and other workers - restoring a basic protection against pay discrimination, by rectifying the May 2007 Ledbetter v Goodyear Supreme Court decision that overturned precedent and made it much more difficult for workers to pursue pay discrimination claims.
Now is the time for the Senate to take up and pass the H.R. 12, the Paycheck Fairness Act and send it to President Obama. This critical bill would provide a much-needed update to the 46-year-old Equal Pay Act by providing more effective remedies to women who are not being paid equal wages for doing equal work. The bill would also prohibit employers from retaliating against employees who share salary information with their co-workers; require the Department of Labor to enhance outreach and training efforts to work with employers to eliminate pay disparities; and create a new grant program to help strengthen the negotiation skills of girls and women.
This year, Equal Pay Day - highlighting the need for equal pay for women workers across America - is observed today, April 28th. Every April, advocates for equal pay mark the time of year in which the wages paid to American women "catch up" to the wages paid to men from the previous year. In other words, because the average woman earns less, she must work longer for the same amount of pay.
Equal pay is not simply a women's issue, it's an American issue. The wage gap hurts everyone - husbands, wives, children, and parents - because it lowers family incomes that pay for essentials: groceries, doctors' visits, child care, etc.. When women earn more, their families benefit as well.
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