Media Stakeout with Democratic Members of the House Following their Caucus

MEDIA STAKEOUT WITH DEMOCRATIC MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE FOLLOWING THEIR CAUCUS MEETING

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REP. DELAURO: Thank you very much, Chairman. I really am delighted to be here today, and proud that, together with the Lilly Ledbetter Pay Fair Act (sic), that the Paycheck Fairness Act is among the first legislative proposals that this Congress has chosen to consider.

And you know that both of the bills are under the jurisdiction of Chairman George Miller. And I just might add that, with regard to the Paycheck Fairness Act, it's a bill I introduced 12 years ago -- 12 years ago, and only until we had George Miller as chair of the subcommittee -- of the committee -- that we were able to get a hearing, we were able to get a markup, and we were able to get the bill to the floor and, last July 31st, were able to pass this bill overwhelmingly in the House, 247 to 178, with every Democrat voting for the bill and a crossover by 14 Republicans. And it is, you know, my hope that we are going to do that again this year.

The fact of the matter is, about this bill -- is that the economy is in crisis and the economy -- with the kind of crisis that we have, the issue of economic insecurity falls more heavily on women.

And I'll just give you a couple of examples.

Incomes for women-headed households are down by 3 percent since 2000. Unmarried women -- that is single, widowed, divorced or separated women -- have an average household income almost $12,000 lower than unmarried men. Half of women are in jobs without retirement plans. Women are one-third more likely to be in subprime mortgages. One-fifth of women are without health care in this country.

Some of these facts are unknown in terms of that economic security. And undergirding all of that is the fact that women are making between 77 and 78 cents on the dollar. And that's lower for African-American women and lower for Latinas. And what the bill does is, because the current system is so rife with loopholes, it has allowed employers to avoid responsibility for discriminatory pay scales.

So what we do is to try to make this a more effective tool. We strengthen the Pay Equity Bill and we make it a more effective tool to combat gender-based pay discrimination. The bill closes loopholes in the 45-year-old Equal Pay Act, which has allowed for employers to evade liability.

It stiffens penalties for employers who discriminate based on gender. You must improve -- you must prove intent to discriminate. It is not frivolous. It is very, very serious. It would protect employees from retaliation, from sharing employee information with their co-workers, with some exceptions. And it establishes a grant initiative to provide negotiation skills and training programs for girls and women. So it -- what it tries to do is address a real problem with concrete solutions.

The fact is that you all know the story about Lilly Ledbetter. Congressman Miller will talk to you about the Pay Fair Act. But the combination of these two bills, which we believe is critical for economic security for women, rights an injustice that the Supreme Court engaged in and also moves women in a forward direction, in terms of being able to -- those who are holding the same jobs as men in the same workplace.

We come to this body as men and women. We come from all parts of the country. We come with different skills, different professions. We are paid the same amount of money.

That is not true for the bulk of women in this country, in the same job.

We have an opportunity, and we will take that opportunity to turn this around on Friday.

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REP. DELAURO: Let me just -- I just would like to add one point, because I think we should reference the economic forum that was held this morning about the recovery package. It was a very, very interesting mix of people.

And for some of you who may have been there -- some of you may have -- you couldn't be there -- but I think if you take a look at the specter of -- the spectrum of economists, whether they are on the liberal, progressive or to the very conservative -- and Martin Feldstein described himself as a conservative this morning, and very, very much for a strong, solid, robust stimulus package.

And the fact is, and I think Jim Cooper said it right, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. The president-elect is under no illusions, none of us are under any illusions about what the deficit is about, but we are in a very serious economic meltdown. I mean, if you listened to Mark Zandi today, it's shutting down. So that's why you have unanimity among people who have not come together around some of these economic principles in the past.

But they get it, and so they are giving us the benefit of advice. This was a listening session, essentially, for members of Congress to get some sense of the depth of the difficulty and how we can begin to build ourselves onto the road for economic recovery.

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