Paycheck Fairness Act

Floor Speech

PAYCHECK FAIRNESS ACT -- (House of Representatives - January 09, 2009)

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Mr. PETERS. I would like to thank the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 12. Decades after the landmark Equal Pay Act and the Civil Rights Act, women in my home State of Michigan still earn an intolerable 70 cents for every dollar earned by a man.

This discrimination must end. Pay equity is not just a women's issue, it is an economic issue. More than ever, working families are relying on two incomes. When a mother is denied fair pay, she is denied the ability to provide for her family, her husband, her children, and the entire family suffers.

My two daughters, Madeleine and Alana, will enter the workforce some day. If I learned that an employer was paying my daughters less than what they deserve, simply because they were female, I would be outraged. And right now our Nation's daughters, our Nation's sisters, our Nation's mothers, are being denied fair treatment and I am outraged, and we all should be as well. This bill creates commonsense measures to ensure fair treatment for women, and I urge its passage here today.

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