Equal Pay for Equal Work

My Congressional Rep. again stands up for women and families. Louise Slaughter is a lead sponsor of the Paycheck Fairness Act which responds to last year's awful Ledbetter v. Goodyear decision with legislation that would help protect women against workplace discrimination.

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 paid lip service to discrimination against women. It was passed because at the time women earned just 59¢ for every dollar that men earned. Now, 45 years later--hooray--women earn 77¢ for every dollar earned by men for the same work. An improvement of 18 cents!

And this figure just compares equal work. It doesn't begin to reflect how women are systematically kept out of high-paying, high-status jobs.

This is what Louise Slaughter said in a recent interview:

The Ledbetter case really shook us up. It was startling. None of us really thought that that would happen in this day and age. But Lilly Ledbetter's not alone. The Wage Project, a nonprofit group, estimates that women lose between $200,000 and $2 million in their lifetimes because of the wage gap.

Read the whole interview here.