Paycheck Fairness Act - Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Madam President, I thank Senator Mikulski for her incredible leadership on this issue.

I come to the floor today in support of equal pay for equal work. I honestly cannot believe we are still arguing over equal pay in 2014. Congress first moved to solve this problem more than 50 years ago when the Equal Pay Act was signed into law.

In 1963 women were earning 59 cents on the dollar for every dollar earned by a man. Today women earn only 77 cents on the dollar compared to what a man earns.

Women are taking a hit in nearly every occupation. Bloomberg analyzed census data and found that median earnings for women were lower than those for men in 264 out of 265 major occupational categories. In 99.6 percent of all occupations, men get paid more than women--99.6 percent. That is not an accident; that is discrimination.

The effects of this discrimination are real and they are long lasting. Women, for example, borrow roughly the same amount of money as men to pay for college, but according to the American Association of University Women, these women make only 82 cents on the dollar compared with men 1 year after graduating. So women take out the same loans to go to college, but they face an even steeper road to repay those loans.

Unequal pay also means a tougher retirement. The average woman in Massachusetts who collects Social Security will receive about $3,000 less each year than a similarly situated man because the benefits are tied to how much people earn while they are working.

This is a problem--a big problem--and women are fed up. Fifty years and a woman still cannot earn the same as a man for doing the same work. Women are ready to fix it, but it is not easy.

Today some women can be fired just for asking the guy across the hall how much money he makes. Earlier today the President issued Executive orders to stop Federal contractors from retaliating against women who ask about their pay and to instruct the Department of Labor to collect better data for the gender pay gap. Good for him, and good for women working for contractors. Now the Congress should extend these protections to all women.

The Senate will soon vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act. This is a commonsense proposal: No discrimination and no retaliation when women ask how much the guys are getting paid. We will get basic data to tell us how much men and women are getting paid for key jobs.

So there it is. It is basic protection, basic information--a fair shot. That is essentially what this bill does.

Sure, sometimes men are paid more than women. Employers can pay different salaries based on factors such as skill, performance, expertise, seniority, and so forth. The Paycheck Fairness Act does not touch any of that. It simply provides the tools that women need to make sure salary differences have something to do with the actual job they are doing and not just the fact that they are women.

Several States have already adopted similar rules. Businesses in these States continue to thrive without any explosion of lawsuits. This bill is about good business, a level playing field for men and women, an equal chance to get the job done, a fair shot for all of us.

America's women are tired of hearing that pay inequality is not real. We are tired of hearing that somehow it is our fault. We are ready to fight back against pay discrimination.

I thank Senator Mikulski and all of my colleagues who are speaking on the floor today for their leadership on this important proposal. I urge the Senate to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act to strengthen America's middle-class families and to level the playing field for hard-working women.

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