Washington, DC – The U.S. Senate today, by a vote of 58-41, failed to invoke cloture on a bill that would have helped ensure equal pay for women in the workforce. The Paycheck Fairness Act would have provided women with additional legal safeguards to protect against pay discrimination.
Following the bill’s defeat, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) submitted remarks to the Congressional record highlighting the need for this common-sense legislation.
“Four decades after the Equal Pay Act was signed into law, women still earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts,” said Whitehouse. “We owe it to the hard working women of the United States, especially in these difficult economic times, when every penny of every paycheck counts, to continue to fight for equality.”
The full text of Whitehouse’s statement is below.
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MR. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise today to express my disappointment in the failure of the Senate to invoke cloture on the Paycheck Fairness Act. After our triumph two years ago in advancing gender equality through the Lilly Ledbetter Act, the first piece of legislation signed by President Obama, the Paycheck Fairness Act would have been another step towards ending gender discrimination in the workplace.
Four decades after the Equal Pay Act was signed into law, women still earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts. That equates to almost $11,000 less per year. In Rhode Island, women on average make approximately $36,500 where men make $49,000. For full-time, college educated Rhode Island workers over 25 years old, women make an average of $55,000, while men average $70,000. This is simply unacceptable and shows that the remedies provided by current law are not adequate. Those who dismiss the disparity as a consequence of women’s “choice of work” ignore the fact that the wage gap exists even in highly skilled industries such as aerospace engineering and network systems and data communications analysis.
The Paycheck Fairness Act would have required employers seeking to pay women less money than their male counterparts to justify the difference with legitimate business factors. It would also have allowed women to compare their wages to those of their colleagues in the same county, not just their own office, providing a larger and fairer pool of comparative examples. And the bill would have allowed women to receive punitive and compensatory damages equal to those in cases of race-based discrimination. We owe it to the hard working women of the United States, especially in these difficult economic times, when every penny of every paycheck counts, to continue to fight for equality.
I commend the bill’s original sponsor, Secretary Clinton, as well as Senator Dodd and Senator Mikulski, who have worked so hard to bring attention to the issue of gender discrimination in the workplace. I will continue to fight alongside my colleagues for the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act.
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