Fair Pay Restoration Act

Floor Speech

FAIR PAY RESTORATION ACT -- (Senate - April 22, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I come to join my colleague from Maryland, the distinguished Senator Mikulski, who has always fought for women's rights because she knows that is what will make our country strong. I serve on the Health, Education, and Labor Committee with the Senator from Maryland. We saw Lilly Ledbetter come before our committee to speak about her experience in a factory where she was not given fair pay. Over time it went all the way to the Supreme Court, where she lost her right in her own lifetime to ever be compensated for the pay she lost because she wasn't treated fairly. She came before our committee, and she was such a woman of dignity and courage, not speaking for herself--anything we do on the floor won't help her personally--but speaking for all women who will come behind her for decades, to make sure they have the right to get equal pay when they are performing an equal job.

I thank Senator Mikulski for her leadership and urge our colleagues tomorrow to vote with us so we can go to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and once and for all assure that our daughters and future generations will have access to equal pay.

This Senate has a very proud history of working across the aisle to pass civil rights laws. Those historic laws ensure that all people have equal rights, regardless of race, religion, gender, or national origin. I am proud that they ensure that my daughter now has the right to work in the same jobs and achieve the same success as my son. But even though women are doing the same jobs as men and working as hard every day, they still are not equal on one important day. That is payday. On payday, women will take home 77 cents for every dollar paid to their male coworkers. That pay gap is even wider for African-American and Latino women. African-American women earn 67 cents on the dollar and Latino women earn 56 cents for every dollar a white man makes. I know some people out there say: That can't be true. It is true.

I rise on Equal Pay Day to recognize that we still have a lot of work to do to ensure fairness in society. Tomorrow is the day the Senate can go on record saying we in this country are going to stand behind the women and men and their children who rely on them to bring home a paycheck.

The pay gap that exists is true regardless of skill or education. It is so deeply engrained in society that many jobs dominated by women pay less than jobs dominated by men, even when the work they do is almost exactly the same. In my State of Washington, a woman with a college degree earns about $20,000 less than a man with the same education. According to a study by the American Association of University Women, the difference in pay starts as soon as that woman enters the workforce. That study found that within a year after graduating from college, a woman will already earn less than her male classmates in nearly every major. So that is a problem when one starts out. It is also a lifelong problem, because by the end of her career, a female worker will have lost an average of $250,000 in earnings.

It is just as important to make it clear that the pay gap is a problem for everyone. This disparity hurts millions of families. In almost 10 million households, mothers are the only breadwinners, and in many cases those women are also supporting parents and extended family members. In far too many of those households women have to struggle to pay for rent or heat or food or gas, especially today as prices are rising. Think of how much better off families would be if a woman were paid a wage equal to men, especially as the economic downturn grows worse and expenses rise.

If women and men made an equal wage, single working women would have 17 percent more income each and every year. Ensuring they earn a fair paycheck could cut the poverty rate in half. Wage disparity follows those women into retirement. Women today are twice as likely to live in poverty over the age of 65. Women are more dependent upon Social Security for a greater percentage of their retirement income. All of us are staring down the looming Social Security crisis. Think how much better off we would be if women could save a little more for retirement and contribute more to Social Security.

My colleagues and I should not have to be here talking about this today. I should not have to come to the floor in the year 2008 to make a case for equal pay. Not only is it a no-brainer, but fairness and equality are fundamental American values. We are not asking for special treatment. We are here because, despite all the work done to ensure equal rights, women haven't achieved equality. We are here because we run the risk that pay discrimination laws are growing weaker, not stronger, if we don't act.

As Senator Mikulski discussed, the Supreme Court last May took a big step backward with its decision on Ledbetter v. Goodyear. That decision went against Congress's intent and 40 years of EEOC practice. It made it almost impossible for workers who suffer pay discrimination to now seek justice.

Today on Equal Pay Day, we urge our colleagues to support legislation that would reverse that decision and ensure workers have a fair shot at fighting discrimination. The Ledbetter decision requires many workers to file a claim within 180 days after their employer discriminates against them, but it does not recognize that in many cases workers don't even know they have been discriminated against for years. It may take them much longer than 180 days to gather the proof. Frankly, for women in the workplace to be aggressive in finding out how much other people get paid in order to even file a case is very difficult. This sounds an awful lot like the Supreme Court is asking our workers to be mindreaders. That is unfair. It is not what Congress intended when we created that law in the first place.

The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act will allow workers to file a claim within 180 days of any discriminatory paycheck. It gives workers the ability to discover the facts and to challenge ongoing discrimination. Although the Ledbetter case involved gender discrimination, the decision applies to all kinds of discrimination, including religion, race, age, disability, and national origin.

Our Nation was founded on the principle that all of its citizens are created equal. We think they ought to be equal on payday as well. As a mother and grandmother, I want my children to live in a country where my daughter can earn as much as my son. Now is the time to ensure that that can be true by strengthening our pay discrimination laws. Now is the time to ensure the Senate's history of civil rights cannot be eroded.

Tomorrow is an important day for women and men. I urge my colleagues to vote with us to consider the Fair Pay Act.

I yield the floor.

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