Paycheck Fairness Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia, the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee for yielding, and I thank him for his untiring work.
``No employer . . . shall discriminate, within any establishment in which such employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex, by paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex.''
That was passed by the Congress of the United States, signed by the President of the United States in 1963. A half a century later, Mr. Speaker, the figures belie that promise. The figures are a shameful recognition of the emptiness of that promise.
Now, I know the gentlewoman from North Carolina, not well, but well enough. We have served here together for some period of time. I hope she will take this with a measure of positivity. She is a feisty lady. She stands up for what she believes. And she is tough. All those things are said lovingly. God help us if they paid her less than they paid every male Member of this House.
But we don't. We pay everybody the same, except, I will admit, the Speaker and myself, so perhaps I am not quite as detached. But everybody else gets the same. A person who comes in the first day gets paid as much as a person who has been here 40 years like me. Why? Because it is the responsibility and duties that we perform that are being compensated, not our gender.
Now, in this bill and every other bill that has dealt with equal pay--however, let there be no mistake, clearly, I pay people in my office who have been there for 10 years more than I pay people that have been there a year if they are doing the same thing. Period. Experience counts.
As a lawyer when I ran my law office, I paid people differently based upon their experience, their education, and other differentials, but not on the basis of gender. And like the gentleman who spoke before me, I have one more daughter than he has; he has two daughters, I have three daughters. Mr. Speaker, they would not be happy today if their dad came to this floor and voted against this bill, I will tell you that. I don't know about the gentleman's daughters, but I can tell you where my daughters would be.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to bring the Paycheck Fairness Act to the floor, as I did last Congress. The legislation is a critical part of Democrats' effort to close the gender pay gap and ensure that women earn equal pay for equal work. Lilly Ledbetter did not get equal pay for equal work. Period. Unfortunately, she was prevented by the Supreme Court from making her case. We corrected that.
The House passed a bill in 2019, but the Republican-controlled Senate failed to do the same, a bill just like this. That was very disappointing, not only to those of us who have been working hard to close the gender pay gap in Congress, but more so to the tens of millions of people in the workforce who deserve to take home pay they have earned. This is not a gift. This is compensation based upon ability and contribution, not on gender.
In America today, a woman still earns on average just 82 cents to every dollar earned by a man. Mr. Chairman, has that been disputed on this floor? From women of color it is even worse. African-American women earn on average only 63 cents to the dollar, while Latinas see 55 cents for the same work.
For women who work full time, year-round, the gender pay gap represents a loss of more than, as the Speaker just said, $400,000. That ought to be unacceptable to all of us if we believe in equality.
This disparity does not only hurt women, it disadvantages their entire families, with women's pay critical to household incomes.
Two-thirds of women are now either the primary breadwinner or co- breadwinner of their households, and women's earnings are the main source of income in more than 4 in 10 households, 40 percent.
Now, the gentlewoman from North Carolina knows full well that historically we have underpaid women because we thought men were the breadwinners. They were the people who earned the money. They were the people who needed money so they could support their families. That is not true today, if it was ever true. Those households ought not to be disadvantaged because women are paid less for the same work as their male counterparts.
I mentioned in 1963 the promise we made as a Nation. In 2009, when I was majority leader for the first time, I was proud to bring the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to the floor and get it passed.
I congratulate Rosa DeLauro who is on the floor today, Mr. Speaker. She has been indefatigable and focused and untiring--I suppose that is redundant--in her efforts to ensure that women were treated equally. And one of the best ways to treat people equally is pay them the same thing for the same job.
The Paycheck Fairness Act builds on its success by making it harder for businesses to hide the underpayment of women in their employ through nondisclosure contracts and imposing new civil penalties for those who violate equal pay rules, among other beneficial provisions.
Now, this has been in effect for half a century, and we haven't gotten there. Do we need some, yeah, let's get it done, this is what the law said in 1963? And we really meant it. So let's carry that out so when the bipartisan, nonpartisan reports are made as to who is making what for the same job, it will come back men and women are getting the same pay for the same job with the same skills and the same seniority.
I hope the Senate will take up this long overdue legislation and pass it so President Biden can sign it into law and at long last make good on the promise of the Equal Pay Act nearly six decades ago.
I thank my friend, as I just did, Rosa DeLauro for the work she has done. I thank Ms. DeLauro on behalf of Susan, on behalf of Stefany, on behalf of Anne, my daughters, on behalf of Judy and Ava and Brooklyn and Savannah, my three great granddaughters and my granddaughter. What she has done, what we can do will make a difference for them, their families, and our country.
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