Issue Position: Poverty, Employment, and Earnings

Issue Position

Despite tremendous strides, American women continue to earn less, are less likely to own a business, and are more likely to live in poverty than American men. A 2008 report by the Institute for Women's Policy Research found that women are paid 68 cents for every dollar a white man makes. On January 9 th, 2009 as one of the very first legislative actions of the 111 th Congress, the House of Representatives passed the Paycheck Fairness Act, H.R. 12, and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, H.R. 11, simultaneously. The Paycheck Fairness Act will revise enforcement prohibitions against sex discrimination in wage payments and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act will ensure the continued protection the right of workers to pursue pay discrimination claims against employers who seek to illegally deny them fair pay. The bill is a common sense response to the Supreme Court's narrow ruling in the Ledbetter vs. Goodyear which ignored the realities of the workplace. It recognizes that employees generally do not know enough about what their co-workers earn, or how pay decisions are made, to file a complaint precisely when discrimination first occurs.

Larger structural issues such as sex discrimination and job segregation play an important role in the perpetuation of women's lower earnings. Race, ethnicity, and place also continue to shape women's economic opportunities. For example, California -- a state with relatively large proportions of women of color -- shows striking wage disparities by race and ethnicity. The report is available here. I will continue to advocate for equality and justice for all

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