Congressional Progressive Caucus

Floor Speech

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Mr. TAKANO. Thank you. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin. I will be speaking today on equal pay. Today I signed the discharge petition to bring the Paycheck Fairness Act to the floor to ensure that women across the country receive equal pay for equal work.

This week, on Tuesday, we recognized Equal Pay Day, which is the symbolic day that marks the time it takes for women's earnings to equal men's earnings from the previous year. Thanks to the 23 percent wage gap, it takes an extra 3 months for women in America to catch up. The wage gap persists at all levels of education and exists across occupations.

In my home State of California, the typical woman, working full-time, year-round, is paid, on average, only 84 cents to every dollar her male counterparts make. In my home district the pay discrepancy is even worse. Women living in the Inland Empire make 81 cents to every dollar, and many are the sole breadwinners in their households. This isn't just an insult to women who work hard at their jobs every day, it hurts families and children.

In my district, the wage gap amounts to an average loss of $8,900 that could be used to pay for rent, groceries, and child care. This is unacceptable.

When President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law, he criticized the unconscionable practice of paying female employees less wages than male employees for the same job. Fifty years later, this unconscionable practice is alive and well, which is why we have a duty to our mothers, sisters, and daughters to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act in this Congress.

Mr. POCAN. Mr. Takano, would you yield to a question?

Mr. TAKANO. Yes, sir.

Mr. POCAN. Mark, I just want to ask you, you've been a leader in this body on chained CPI.

Mr. TAKANO. Yes.

Mr. POCAN. We did several press conferences this week. You're the author of a major letter from many people in this House about it.

Could you just address a little bit about why you're so passionate about the need to make sure we have Social Security for generations in the future and why you oppose the chained CPI.

Mr. TAKANO. Well, I believe chained CPI is bad for veterans and it's bad for our seniors, but let me focus on the seniors for a moment.

The chained CPI, explained in a very simple way, is a way that the government would ostensibly index Social Security COLAS, cost-of-living increases. Said very simply, under chained CPI, seniors would be paid less over time.

The assumption is that seniors would be able to substitute less costly items for the current items they might currently buy. But, you know, seniors really use health care a lot more than the rest of us, and that's the largest burden that they're facing, trying to pay for their health care costs, prescription drugs.

I think it's a false premise to say that seniors will be able to find less costly substitutions. More and more of their income would be going to that.

I believe that many people call Social Security, Medicare, entitlements. I call them sacred promises that we made to our seniors. I don't believe that we should break those promises. We must keep those promises.

People have earned these benefits over a lifetime. They planned their lives around them, and we simply can't go back on what we've promised our parents and grandparents.

Mr. POCAN. Thank you, Representative Takano, again, for you leadership on this issue. As I said, you've authored one of the major letters that's out there talking about chained CPI and cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare.

And also, as a member of the Veterans Committee, I know you've been especially articulate on the effects on veterans. I thank you for your time.

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you, sir.

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