[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]





                                                         S. Hrg. 117-78
 
                          THE GENDER WAGE GAP:
                   BREAKING THROUGH STALLED PROGRESS

=======================================================================

                            VIRTUAL HEARING

                               before the

                        JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

                                 of the

                     CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                              JUNE 9, 2021

                               __________

          Printed for the use of the Joint Economic Committee
          
          
          
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             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
 45-211 PDF           WASHINGTON : 2021 
 
 
        
        
                        JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

    [Created pursuant to Sec. 5(a) of Public Law 304, 79th Congress]

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES             SENATE
Donald S. Beyer Jr., Virginia,       Martin Heinrich, New Mexico, Vice 
    Chairman                             Chairman
David Trone, Maryland                Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota
Joyce Beatty, Ohio                   Margaret Wood Hassan, New 
Mark Pocan, Wisconsin                    Hampshire
Scott Peters, California             Mark Kelly, Arizona
Sharice L. Davids, Kansas            Raphael G. Warnock, Georgia
David Schweikert, Arizona            Mike Lee, Utah, Ranking Member
Jaime Herrera Beutler, Washington    Tom Cotton, Arkansas
Jodey C. Arrington, Texas            Rob Portman, Ohio
Ron Estes, Kansas                    Bill Cassidy, M.D., Louisiana
                                     Ted Cruz, Texas

                  Tamara L. Fucile, Executive Director
            Vanessa Brown Calder, Republican Staff Director
            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                     Opening Statements of Members

Hon. Donald Beyer Jr., Chairman, a U.S. Representative from the 
  Commonwealth of Virginia.......................................     1
Hon. Mike Lee, Ranking Member, a U.S. Senator from Utah..........     3

                               Witnesses

Dr. Michele Holder, Associate Professor of Economics, John Jay 
  College, City University of New York, New York, NY.............     6
Dr. Marlene Kim, Professor of Economics, University of 
  Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA...............................     9
Ms. Ai-jen Poo, Co-Founder and Executive Director, National 
  Domestic Workers Alliance, New York, NY........................    10
Mrs. Romina Boccia, Managing Director, Stonebrick, LLC, Salt Lake 
  City, UT.......................................................    12

                       Submissions for the Record

Prepared statement of Hon. Donald Beyer Jr., Chairman, a U.S. 
  Representative from the Commonwealth of Virginia...............    34
Prepared statement of Hon. Mike Lee, Ranking Member, a U.S. 
  Senator from Utah..............................................    35
Prepared statement of Dr. Michele Holder, Associate Professor of 
  Economics, John Jay College, City University of New York, New 
  York, NY.......................................................    37
Prepared statement of Dr. Marlene Kim, Professor of Economics, 
  University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA.................    42
Prepared statement of Ms. Ai-jen Poo, Co-Founder and Executive 
  Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance, New York, NY.....    53
Prepared statement of Mrs. Romina Boccia, Managing Director, 
  Stonebrick, LLC, Salt Lake City, UT............................    62


                          THE GENDER WAGE GAP:

                   BREAKING THROUGH STALLED PROGRESS

                              ----------                              


                        WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9, 2021

                    United States Congress,
                          Joint Economic Committee,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The WebEx virtual hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, 
at 2:30 p.m., before the Joint Economic Committee, Hon. Donald 
S. Beyer Jr., Chairman, presiding.
    Representatives present: Beyer, Schweikert, Estes, Pocan, 
Arrington, and Peters.
    Senators present: Lee, Heinrich, Klobuchar, Cruz, Warnock, 
Kelly, and Hassan.
    Staff present: Melanie Ackerman, Vanessa Brown Calder, 
Tamara Fucile, Colleen J. Healy, Liz Hipple, Jeremy Johnson, 
Adam Michel, Alexander Schunk, Jackie Varas, and Emily Volk.

 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DONALD BEYER JR., CHAIRMAN, A U.S. 
        REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

    Chairman Beyer. This hearing will come to order. I would 
like to welcome everyone to today's hearing focused on the 
gender wage gap.
    I want to thank each of our distinguished witnesses for 
sharing their expertise today. We have an all-star panel, and I 
am excited to hear what they say.
    I would ask at the beginning that all of us work to respect 
our five-minute clock so we can get through all this this 
afternoon. So thank you for your consciousness.
    Today on the eve of the 58th anniversary of the passage of 
the Equal Pay Act, American women on average still earn just 82 
percent of what men earn. This translates to $10,000 less in 
median earnings each year. And while we have made improvements 
in narrowing that gap over the last 50 years, progress toward 
closing it has actually slowed and even stalled in recent 
decades as policy has failed to support women as workers and 
ensure that equal work is rewarded with equal pay.
    And not only that, but the top line number does not give us 
the full picture. Black women earn only 63 percent, Native 
American women 60 percent, and Latina women only 55 percent of 
what White men earn.
    This failure to close the gender wage gap is not just an 
issue for the women experiencing this pay gap, it is also an 
issue for their families and for our whole economy.
    Women's earnings are a crucial component of families' 
economic security. Two-thirds of mothers are either the primary 
breadwinner or co-breadwinner in their families. And the 
Institute for Women's Policy Research estimates that if working 
women received equal pay with comparable men--that is, men of 
the same age, the same education, who work the same hours, and 
who live in similar regions--you know, they are apples to 
apples, then poverty for working women would be reduced by more 
than 40 percent.
    This is an issue for our whole economy because women's lost 
wages translate into lost GDP, 2.8 percent of GDP to be 
specific, or even more specific $541 billion per year.
    Therefore, if long-term economic growth is our goal--as it 
should be--then closing the gender wage gap is not just a moral 
imperative, it is an economic one.
    If we are to properly address this persistent wage gap, 
first we have to understand it. So let us look at the root 
causes.
    First, economists estimate that half of the gender wage gap 
is still caused by differences in the types of industries and 
occupations that women and men work in. For example, men are 
over-represented in jobs like construction and software 
development, and women are over-represented in jobs such as 
administrative assistants and cashiers.
    But while some point to this as evidence that the gender 
wage gap is due to women making different choices about their 
careers, the reality is that even within the same industry and 
the same occupations, women are still paid less than men. As an 
example, research finds that up to 68 percent of the gender pay 
gap could be closed if men and women were paid equally within 
occupations--that is, men and women received equal pay for 
equal work.
    And explanations of the gap that point to individual 
characteristics or choices only account for part of the 
problem. When you add up all the measurable explanations for 
the gender gap, including differences in occupation and 
industry, or accounting for education and length of work 
experience, 38 percent of the gender wage gap remains 
``unexplained,'' which many economists attribute to 
discrimination.
    Finally, when seeking to understand the gender wage gap, we 
cannot ignore the role played by our economy's devaluation of 
the work that has traditionally been done by women, 
particularly women of color. Care work is among some of the 
lowest paid work in our economy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics 
estimates that the median pay for home health and personal care 
aides is $27,080 a year, which is barely above the poverty 
level for a family of four. Perhaps not coincidentally, women 
of color make up a disproportionate share of care workers. For 
example, Black women are 13 percent of the U.S. workforce, but 
28 percent of health care workers.
    Addressing the gender wage gap will also require a multi-
faceted approach. No single policy is going to close it, but 
there are many policies that will help narrow it.
    Raising wages in low-paying occupations that tend to be 
dominated by women would provide the greatest benefit to the 
women in these jobs, while also benefiting all workers. An 
important way we can do this is by strengthening the minimum 
wage and improving workers' bargaining power such as through 
legislation like the Raise the Wage and PRO Acts.
    Gender and racial discrimination are the second largest 
driver of the gender pay gap. Therefore, policies that address 
the ongoing role of discrimination in the labor market will be 
absolutely necessary to make a meaningful difference in the pay 
gap. The Paycheck Fairness Act is one example of a policy that 
would make it easier for women to challenge pay discrimination.
    And finally, we also need policies that help keep women 
connected to the labor market and moving up the career ladder, 
such as paid leave and affordable childcare. We cannot make 
progress toward narrowing the gender pay gap if we do not make 
it sustainable for women to remain in the workforce through 
policies like the Building an Economy for Families Act, the 
FAMILY Act, or the Child Care for Working Families Act, which 
are aimed at ensuring that all workers are able to take the 
time they need to care for their families and make sure their 
children are receiving quality care while they are at work.
    And this is why I so look forward to the testimony of our 
witnesses. So now let me turn it over to Senator Lee from the 
Great State of Utah for his opening statement.
    Senator Lee, the floor is yours.
    [The prepared statement of Chairman Beyer appears in the 
Submissions for the Record on page 34.]

  OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE LEE, RANKING MEMBER, A U.S. 
                       SENATOR FROM UTAH

    Senator Lee. Thank so much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 
convening today's hearing on this topic.
    Women make unique and invaluable contributions to our 
families, our communities, and to our workplaces. Thankfully, 
these opportunities for women in the workplace have grown 
tremendously over time.
    The female labor force participation rate has doubled over 
the last 50 years. And American women have not simply joined 
the workforce, but they have excelled and they have become 
leaders within it. In fact, the United States has a higher 
share of female managers than almost every other OECD nation.
    I myself am fortunate to benefit from the skills and the 
expertise of my female chief of staff, female legislative 
director, female chief counsel, and female staff director here 
on the Joint Economic Committee. So I am personally grateful 
for the fruits of women's economic progress and freedom. I am 
also the father of an unbelievably gifted and intellectually 
curious daughter. For this and so many other reasons, fairly 
valuing women's important contributions is particularly 
important to me.
    The gender pay gap is the topic that brings us here today, 
and the pay gap is frequently a focal point in conversations 
about women's labor market experiences. Although the pay gap 
can tell us some things about women's experiences at work, we 
know that--like many metrics--the pay gap has limitations. If 
as a society we truly care about supporting and empowering 
women, then it is crucial that we understand what those 
limitations are, and what this measure can tell us, and what it 
does not tell us.
    For example, although the pay gap indicates that the 
average man and the average woman earn different amounts, the 
headline number does not necessarily tell us why this is the 
case. We know that industry, occupation, years of service, 
educational attainment, geographic location, and family 
decisions all matter greatly when it comes to pay. Some of 
these characteristics vary for the average man and the average 
woman and contribute in significant ways to the pay gap.
    One of the largest drivers of the pay gap seems to be that 
men and women work in different industries and in different 
occupations. Care taking responsibilities also play an outsized 
role--before the birth of their first child, women make the 
same on average as men. But afterward, working mothers' 
earnings tend to diverge from working fathers' earnings, 
reflecting on average fewer hours worked and other changes.
    Although some of women's decisions regarding their 
education, occupation, industry, and engagement with the labor 
force may be influenced by cultural pressures and expectations, 
that is analytically distinct from a conclusion as to whether, 
or to what extent or in what way employers are discriminating 
on the basis of gender.
    Still, women cannot make as many decisions as they should 
be able to make when it comes to their work life. And 
government policy needs to get out of the way and allow 
employers to provide the flexibility that working mothers say 
they want.
    A path forward, I believe, lies in policymakers at the 
Federal, state, and local level removing the government 
barriers that currently limit choice and opportunity for women. 
Reforming regulations that get in the way of flexible work can 
greatly increase opportunity. This type of reform would help 
all workers, but especially working women who surveys indicate 
prioritize flexibility in order to care for their families.
    Passing the Working Families Flexibility Act would be a 
step in the right direction to help women and other workers. 
For decades, Federal labor laws have unfairly restricted 
working parents in the private sector from choosing either 
traditional overtime pay or paid time off as compensation for 
overtime hours worked, even while granting a special exemption 
for government employees. The Working Families Flexibility Act 
would correct this disparity to give the same opportunity to 
all working moms and dads.
    In addition to passing the Working Families Flexibility 
Act, policymakers should reform home-based business zoning, 
which stifles entrepreneurship. While home-based businesses 
have multiplied in recent decades--currently making up half of 
all businesses--many remain ``underground'' since they are 
illegal under current law. An incredible 17 percent of Black 
women and 10 percent of White women are entrepreneurs, and so 
regulatory reform to ease these burdensome rules will be 
especially helpful in clearing the path for their success.
    Occupational licensing laws also constitute a major barrier 
to work, and reform is necessary to eliminate onerous 
requirements for jobs that can be done with little risk to 
workers and those they serve.
    Another area in need of reform is childcare. There are many 
unnecessary regulations that drive up the cost of care. Some 
laws impose unnecessary education requirements on daycare 
workers, or sometimes they increase staff-to-child ratios, 
making it far more difficult and expensive for families to 
afford care, and preventing some women from working at all. 
Passing the Child Care Worker Opportunity Act would help 
address this issue for working moms and childcare workers in 
the Washington, D.C., area.
    Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention the 
Paycheck Fairness Act, which yesterday the Senate voted not to 
take up. If we care about women's long-term success, it seems 
important that we consider the unintentional impacts that this 
bill would likely have, and how it may result in more rigid 
compensation structures that could translate into less 
flexibility in the workplace, and fewer of the work 
arrangements that women and many men value.
    In addition to reforming regulatory barriers, recent 
history tells us that growth in opportunities for female 
workers translates to higher wages, new jobs, and a narrowing 
of the pay gap. Just in the years before the pandemic, pro-
growth policies like lower taxes and regulatory reforms helped 
sustain a strong labor market for American workers. Women, and 
especially women of color, benefited the most. They experienced 
some of the fastest job growth and largest wage gains on 
record.
    Rebuilding after the pandemic will be challenging, but we 
know that markets, supported by common-sense policies, are the 
best way to support female workers and allow them to build on 
their decades of progress in the workplace.
    As we seek to empower women in the workplace, it is 
essential that we support these pro-growth policies and protect 
workplace flexibility. I am hopeful that today's hearing will 
help us better understand how to meet women's and working 
mothers' needs, and how to develop policies that empower them 
to continue building on their many achievements.
    I look forward to hearing the insights of our witnesses on 
this important topic. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ranking Member Lee appears in 
the Submissions for the Record on page 35.]
    Chairman Beyer. Senator Lee, thank you very much.
    I would now like to introduce our four distinguished 
witnesses.
    Dr. Michele Holder will be an Associate Professor of 
Economics at the John Jay College of the City University of New 
York starting this August. Previously, she has worked 
professionally as an economist for a decade in both the 
nonprofit and government sectors. Her research focuses on the 
Black community and women of color in the American labor 
market. Her research into the gender wage gap includes work on 
the double gap that Black women face. Dr. Holder received her 
Master's and Doctoral Degrees in Economics from the New School 
for Social Research, and a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from 
Purdue University.
    Dr. Marlene Kim is a Professor of Economics at the 
University of Massachusetts, Boston, She specializes in race 
and gender discrimination and employment, especially the 
intersection of the two, and the working poor. Her work has 
been published widely in journals and books, including editing 
Race and Economic Opportunity in the 21st Century. She is a 
recipient of the First Rhonda Williams Prize for her work on 
race and gender discrimination. Dr. Kim holds a Ph.D. in 
Economics and a B.A. in Economics and English from the 
University of California, Berkeley.
    Ai-jen Poo is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the 
National Domestic Workers Alliance, a nonprofit organization 
working to bring quality work, dignity, and fairness to the 
growing number of workers who care and clean in our homes, the 
majority of whom are immigrants and women of color. She is a 
leading expert in the care economy, and how it is increasingly 
defining the future of work. Ms. Poo has been recognized among 
courts in the world's 50 greatest leaders, and Time's 100 Most 
Influential People in the World and has received numerous 
awards, including the MacArthur Fellowship. She has a B.A. from 
Columbia University, and honorary doctorates from Smith 
College, The New School and the City University of New York.
    And finally, we have Mrs. Romina Boccia. She is the 
Managing Director of Stonebrick LLC. She was previously the 
Director of the Grover & Herman Center for the Federal budget 
at the Heritage Foundation, where she oversaw production of the 
Foundation's annual Federal budget plan. She also previously 
served as a policy analyst at the Independents Women's Forum. 
Mrs. Boccia's research has focused on government spending and 
the national debt. She received her Bachelor's and Master's 
Degrees in Economics from George Mason University.
    Dr. Holder, let's begin with your testimony, and then we 
will continue in the order in which each of you was introduced. 
Dr. Holder, the floor is yours.

    STATEMENT OF DR. MICHELE HOLDER, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF 
 ECONOMICS, JOHN JAY COLLEGE, CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, NEW 
                            YORK, NY

    Dr. Holder. Good afternoon. Thank you, Chairman Beyer. Good 
afternoon to you, to Senator Lee, and Distinguished Members of 
the Joint Economic Committee.
    Thank you for the opportunity today to discuss the gender 
wage gap. As Chairman Beyer noted, my name is Dr. Michele 
Holder. I am an Associate Professor of Economics at John Jay 
College, City University of New York, as of August of this 
year.
    I am a labor economist by training, and my research does 
focus on the position and status of the Black community and 
women in the American labor market. In my remarks today, I will 
discuss the impact of the gender wage gap on Black women in the 
U.S. To do so, I will largely draw on original quantitative 
research I conducted last year on Black women and the gender 
wage gap in the economic report The ``Double Gap'' and the 
Bottom Line: African American Women's Wage Gap and Corporate 
Profits, which I prepared for the Roosevelt Institute in New 
York City.
    The gender wage gap is typically a straightforward 
comparison of the average or median full-time wages or earnings 
of all working men in the U.S. to the average or median full-
time wages or earnings of all working women in the U.S.
    However, the gender wage gap formulation masks complex 
factors that play a role in the gap, including occupational 
crowding based on gender, gender socialization, employer bias, 
historical exclusionary practices on the part of unions, the 
so-called motherhood penalty, and human capital disparities.
    One prominent narrative that has been advanced regarding 
the gender wage gap is that it is not due to discriminatory 
treatment on the part of employers in this country. Instead, 
the fault lies primarily with women due to voluntary choices we 
make.
    While I do not dispute that women are clearly capable of 
making informed choices about their careers, what I hope to 
show is that even when women seemingly do all the things that 
should result in equitable pay, there are long-held practices 
in American work life that leave women vulnerable to unequal 
pay.
    If we were to rank median or average annual pay in the U.S. 
by race and gender, women of color, including Black women, 
would be at the very bottom of the that rank. Black women earn 
the least due to the effects of both the, what is called the 
racial wage gap, meaning overall Black Americans on average 
earn less than White Americans in the U.S. This is what is 
called the racial wage gap. As well as the gender wage gap. I 
term this dual effect the ``double gap'' in wages of Black 
women.
    According to the National Partnership for Women and 
Families, Black women earn 61 cents for every dollar non-
Hispanic White men earn. The takeaway here is that the gender 
wage gap has the largest absolute negative impact on the 
individual earnings of women of color, as Chairman Beyer noted 
in his opening statement.
    In original research I conducted using descriptive as well 
as regression analyses, most of the important factors that 
could contribute to the earnings differential between Black 
women and non-Hispanic White men such as educational attainment 
or years of work experience, have been taken into account or 
controlled for, which means that I compare full-time working 
Black women and full-time working non-Hispanic White men with 
similar educational attainment, similar work experience, and 
many other commonalities with regard to skill sets. Thus, I 
compare, as Chairman Beyer noted, apples to apples in this 
analysis of the wage gap between Black women and White men.
    What I found in my research is that, with few exceptions, 
non-Hispanic White men earn considerably more than Black women 
in almost all 22 major occupational categories, and almost all 
77 minor occupational categories. You all will note that I am 
comparing Black women to non-Hispanic White men because if we 
ranked the median or annual earnings by workers according to 
race and gender, non-Hispanic White men would be at the top of 
that rank, and Black women would be at the bottom of that rank 
along with Native American women and Latinas.
    For an individual Black female worker, the annual earnings 
gap does range. It can be as low as $5,000 in some low-wage 
occupations, or it can be as high as $50- to $75,000, this is 
per-year, in high-wage occupations. These are annual gap 
amounts, annual differentials.
    More and less on average I found that in 2019, which was 
the year of my research, the annual gap in earnings between 
Black women and non-Hispanic White men ranged between $10,000 
to $20,000 per year for a typical Black female worker in the 
U.S.
    In the aggregate, I estimate that the wages Black women in 
the U.S. what I term ``involuntarily forfeit'' due to the 
combination of both the racial and wage gaps, amounts to 
approximately $50 billion per year--a large and reoccurring 
annual loss to the Black community.
    Several factors can contribute to the gender wage gap faced 
by Black women. Those factors include Black women's 
historically subordinate position in the American labor market. 
The role of networks, differences in college completion rates 
between Black and White Americans. There is still a large 
educational attainment gap between Blacks and Whites at the 
level of college completion.
    Over 35 percent of non-Hispanic Whites have a college 
degree, compared to 25 percent of Blacks. The use of prior 
earnings history in determining earnings or wages, in 2018 the 
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals case of Rizzo v. Avena, which 
was subsequently vacated by the U.S. Supreme Court on a 
technicality, the common practice of requesting previous salary 
histories from job applicants was found to be discriminatory 
against women, the lack of wages earnings transparency in the 
American workforce, and in our American culture, and 
discrimination and bias on the part of employers.
    These policy approaches, I believe, have the potential to 
narrow the gender wage gap for Black women in particular. 
First, passage of state and/or Federal laws would prohibit 
employers from requesting previous salary histories from job 
applicants.
    Second--sorry, rolling--passage of state and/or Federal 
laws requiring pay transparency in the private sector. 
Economist Marlene Kim, who is also testifying today, has found 
that in states where pay secrecy practices are banned, the 
gender wage gap is lower among highly educated women.
    Number three, revision of the EEO-1 form to include 
compensation data. This form, required to be submitted 
regularly by employers, already reports the demographic and 
occupational makeup of most workers in the U.S.--demographic, 
occupational, and gender. And this data is used by the EEOC to 
support civil rights enforcement. Under Former President Obama, 
an Executive Order implemented a revision to the form to 
include compensation data. Unfortunately, this revision was 
jettisoned under Former President Trump's administration.
    I, and other advocates such as Joceline Frye at the Center 
for American Progress, call for this revision to be 
reimplemented.
    Number four, the likelihood of acquiring student debt is a 
disincentive to attending college. Making tuition free at 
community and public colleges throughout the U.S. would 
incentivize more Black women to complete their bachelor's 
degrees, raising this group's median education attainment 
level, which will likely lead to a narrowing of the wage gap 
this group encounters.
    And, finally, raise the Federal minimum wage. The majority 
of minimum wage earners in the U.S. are women, and 
proportionately more Black women earn the minimum wage than 
Black men. Economist Marlene Kim, again who is testifying 
today, has found a small but positive effect on the gender wage 
gap, meaning that it narrows, that would occur by raising the 
minimum wage. I believe I am out of time.
    Chairman Beyer. Yes, Dr. Holder. Thank you very much. Let's 
move on because we just have your conclusion left, but thank 
you very much. It restates it all very well. So we have it in 
writing, also. Thank you, Dr. Holder, very much.
    So now we will hear from Dr. Kim, from the University of 
Massachusetts, Boston.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Holder appears in the 
Submissions for the Record on page 37.]

     STATEMENT OF DR. MARLENE KIM, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, 
            UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, BOSTON, MA

    Dr. Kim. Chairman Beyer, Ranking Member Mike Lee, and 
Members of the Joint Committee, thank you for inviting me to 
this very important hearing. I am Marlene Kim, a Professor of 
Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and I 
have been studying the gender wage gap for 30 years.
    As my written testimony has shown, we have made great 
progress in reducing the gender wage gap from women earning 65 
percent of men to the low 80s today. But progress has stalled 
for over a decade. Why?
    Unconscious biases remain against women. Women with the 
same qualifications are less likely to be hired, trained, 
mentored, promoted, and compensated at the same rate as men. 
Homophily bias explains this. People like to associate with 
people who are similar to them, so they hire, train, mentor, 
and promote people who are like them, including by gender and 
race. This Bias directly enters the pay setting process so that 
occupations held by women are underpaid compared to occupations 
held by men, simply because women perform this work.
    This occurs in two different ways. First, before gender 
discrimination was illegal, companies explicitly underpaid 
predominantly female occupations, and they never remedied this. 
For example, personnel analysts in the State of California's 
civil service asked policymakers: Should any difference in pay 
because of sex be made? And they recommended that occupations 
filled mostly by women be paid less, such as in clerical work. 
They underpaid predominantly female occupations 22 to 36 
percent less, and some of this underpayment continues today. 
Research shows that this underpayment of predominantly female 
occupations was also performed all over the U.S. and all over 
the world.
    Second, when establishing compensation systems, companies 
perform job evaluations to identify occupations with greater 
value to the firms and pay these more. The problem is that 
employers usually have separate job evaluations for 
occupational groups, such as a job evaluation for managers, a 
separate one for clerical and administrative assistants, and 
another separate one for engineers. And with occupational 
segregation--that women and men work in different occupational 
groups--having different job evaluations by occupational groups 
means that employers are only comparing predominantly female 
occupations to other women's occupations in their job 
evaluations. And predominantly male occupations with other male 
occupations in those job evaluations. This results in the 
underpayment of women's jobs becoming embedded in the pay 
structures.
    But jobs of comparable value to employers should be paid 
the same. Therefore, employers should re-evaluate their job 
evaluations and use only one job evaluation for all of their 
jobs, so that women's and men's occupations are evaluated in 
the same way and with consistent criteria. And jobs of 
comparable value to employers are paid the same.
    If you do this, women's earnings increase, and you 
eliminate half of poverty. This is not a far-fetched idea. It 
has been implemented in Australia, in the public sector in 
Minnesota, and in cities and school districts across the United 
States.
    So I recommend that jobs in the Federal sector, and jobs 
with Federal contractors, be re-evaluated in this way. In 
addition, since women are less likely to be hired, trained, and 
promoted, additional remedies are needed. We need greater 
enforcement of anti-discrimination laws and affirmative action. 
We need to require diversity, sexual harassment, and gender-
free bias training in the Federal Government, and for 
government contractors.
    It would be great to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. This 
would eliminate pay secrecy, which would reduce the gender wage 
gap. It would also help with collecting more detailed data on 
Federal contractors, so you can discover if the pay of women 
and men and people of color within occupations differs. And, if 
their hiring and promotion rates differ. And if it is not 
already there, we should also require more detailed 
occupational categories in the same EEO-1 form that Dr. Holder 
mentioned so that we can evaluate if companies are hiring, 
training, and promoting women and people of color in their 
respective numbers.
    To conclude, the gender wage gap has stalled, but it can be 
fixed, and you can make a difference in this. I look forward to 
your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Kim appears in the 
Submissions for the Record on page 42.]
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Dr. Kim, very much. I will next 
hear from Ai-jen Poo, who is the Executive Director of the 
National Domestic Workers Alliance. And, Ms. Poo, one thing I 
have always been impressed with is these are the jobs most 
difficult to turn over to robots. I would love to hear what you 
have to say.

STATEMENT OF MS. AI-JEN POO, CO-FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 
        NATIONAL DOMESTIC WORKERS ALLIANCE, NEW YORK, NY

    Ms. Poo. That is right, there is not yet an algorithm for 
empathy. Thank you so much, Chairman Beyer, and Ranking Member 
Lee, and the Members of the Committee. It is truly an honor for 
me to have the opportunity to testify on how we break through 
the gender wage gap.
    As Chairman Beyer said, I am the Executive Director of the 
National Domestic Workers Alliance. Founded in 2007, we are the 
home for the 2.2 million domestic workers who work as nannies, 
home care workers, and house cleaners in private home settings, 
providing care and cleaning services. Our community includes 
over 250,000 domestic workers in all 50 states, working to 
achieve economic security and opportunity.
    Domestic work is the work that makes everything else 
possible in our lives. It ensures that we have the ability to 
go to work and participate in our society and in our economy, 
knowing that our homes and our families are in good care. It 
has always been essential work, and yet it has always been 
devaluated and underpaid.
    The racial and gender wage gap in our economy are apparent 
here in the way that this entire workforce, a workforce that is 
90 percent women, majority women of color, and a third 
immigrant, have been devaluated, underpaid, and excluded from 
the framework of our law and policy.
    The work of care and cleaning has always been associated 
with women. The fact that we have never adequately valued the 
care economy means that the whole bowl of work that has fallen 
on the shoulders of unpaid women family members, and underpaid 
women of color professionals, is invisible.
    During the New Deal Era, Congress enacted the Fair Labor 
Standards Act to raise wages in the National Labor Relations 
Act to guarantee employees the right to form unions. However, 
domestic workers were excluded from these signature New Deal 
laws as a result of racism. Seven members of Congress refused 
to support the labor law provisions of the New Deal if they 
covered domestic workers and also farm workers who were largely 
Black workers at the time.
    That has resulted in the reality that most domestic workers 
work incredibly hard and still cannot make ends meet. They are 
much more likely than other workers to be living in poverty. 
The typical domestic worker is paid $12 an hour, or 39.8 
percent less than a typical nondomestic worker who is paid 
$19.97 an hour. The average annual income of the domestic 
worker is less than $16,000 per year, as compared to that of 
$39,000 for nondomestic workers.
    They do not have job security, a clear work agreement, 
access to benefits, or health care. So the workers that we 
count on to care for us and our families struggle to take care 
of themselves and their own families doing this work.
    The fact that we still refer to this profession as 
``help,'' as opposed to the skilled profession that it is, is a 
reflection of how we have devalued this workforce. With the 
American Jobs and Family Plan we can and must address this. We 
can ensure that home care workers earn a living wage, and we 
can ensure that this workforce has access to the childcare and 
the paid family and medical leave they need to sustain them in 
their work and care for the people they love.
    For example, the proposed investment in Medicaid Home and 
Community-Based Services and President Biden's American Jobs 
Plan, would be transformative to addressing the gender pay gap 
in at least two ways.
    First, there is the direct benefit of creating good jobs 
for the home care workforce. There is a huge demand for this 
work, and wages are shockingly low. So we have high rates of 
turnover, and home care deserts across the country. As Chairman 
Beyer said, these are jobs that cannot be automated and cannot 
be outsourced. This investment is the single highest impact way 
for us to create good jobs that will go to women and women of 
color.
    Second, there is the benefit to the unpaid family caregiver 
that relies on this workforce. There are 42 million caregivers 
who work full-time and provide care to an aging loved one, or a 
loved one with a disability, who are also majority women. This 
care enables them to work, to have the real option to return to 
work. And this is particularly important in light of the nearly 
5 million women who have been pushed entirely out of the 
workforce in the pandemic because of caregiving challenges.
    Putting this essential workforce that was excluded from the 
New Deal because of racism and sexism at the forefront of the 
largest jobs plan since World War II is a profound opportunity 
to address the gender pay gap, one that we must do for this 
workforce and for all of us.
    Thank you, Chairman.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Poo appears in the 
Submissions for the Record on page 53.]
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Ms. Poo, very much. And finally, 
we will hear from Romina Boccia from the Stonebrick LLC.

STATEMENT OF MRS. ROMINA BOCCIA, MANAGING DIRECTOR, STONEBRICK 
                    LLC, SALT LAKE CITY, UT

    Mrs. Boccia. Chairman Beyer, Ranking Member Lee, and 
Distinguished Members of the Committee, good afternoon. Thank 
you for inviting me.
    My name is Romina Boccia, and I am a first-generation 
immigrant and naturalized American citizen. And I believe in 
the American dream that ours is a country that provides 
opportunity for all to make something of themselves with hard 
work, a little help, and some luck.
    I was raised by a single mom with a physical disability and 
mental health problems. We were on welfare for most of my 
childhood years. I started working to help support our family 
when I was only 11 years old, and I have been working ever 
since. I was even a home care worker caring for individuals 
with disabilities before going to college.
    As a woman who today is the sole breadwinner in her family, 
I personally know how important it is for women to be treated 
equally in the workplace. I believe everyone, regardless of 
their gender, should be able to earn their worth based on the 
value they add, and not be subject to unfair discrimination. I 
also know that neither men nor women necessarily earn what they 
are worth automatically.
    We earn what we negotiate. Both market factors outside of 
our control such as a recession, and factors at least partially 
within our control such as skill level, affect our negotiating 
power.
    On both the employer and the employee's side, it matters 
greatly what alternatives we have available. I have studied the 
gender wage gap for more than 10 years. It is one of the most 
misleading policy issues today. Your constituents assume that 
when we talk about the gender wage gap it is evidence of 
discrimination and we do so by comparing apples and apples, men 
and women working under the same conditions in the same jobs 
putting in the same hours. That is not the case.
    The gender wage gap in fact compares apples and oranges. 
Because when you divide the median wage of all full-time 
working women by the median wage of all full-time working men, 
without adjusting for important factors that explain obvious 
differences in earnings, you inevitably arrive at a highly 
misleading statistic.
    Earnings are primarily a function of productivity. Only 
after accounting for explanatory factors can we reasonably 
discern whether the gender wage gap is a useful signal alerting 
us to a problem, or a function of men and women making 
different choices.
    Some of those important factors include hours worked. And 
BLS data clearly shows that women work on average 10 percent 
fewer hours than men. This holds true even in highly regulated 
work environments that leave little room for discrimination we 
find the gender wage gap.
    For example, a study examining the earnings of male and 
female bus and train operators in Massachusetts identified that 
women earn 89 percent of what men earn, concluding that--and I 
quote--``while having the same choice set in the workplace, 
women and men make different choices.'' End quote.
    In particular, women chose to work only half as many 
overtime hours as men, and take an average of 17.5 days of 
unpaid leave compared with men. If women worked more hours than 
men, at least in this particular setting, we would expect them 
to earn more than men.
    There is some hopeful news as well, though. Young women 
today are earning more university degrees, everything from 
bachelor degrees than men, and we actually observe a gender 
wage gap in diverse and major metropolitan areas among college-
educated childless women. This changes once women have children 
and begin to reduce their hours, or take more time off from 
work for caregiving. Women are more likely to interrupt their 
careers for caregiving, primarily for childcare but also for 
elder care.
    Culture and gender socializations play a role in who takes 
on these caregiving responsibilities that are so important for 
households and families. And some countries have tried to take 
more aggressive measures to equalize leave policies, but public 
policy is a blunt tool when it comes to what is best referred 
to as a choice gap.
    There is also the important role that benefits play. Women 
are more likely than men to work in industries that provide 
more of their compensation in the form of benefits, including 
in government, education, and nonprofit organizations. Non-cash 
benefits such as health coverage and paid leave are not taken 
into account when we look at the broad gender wage gap.
    We should first diagnose the problem accurately to 
determine whether public policy is the right tool to address 
it, or whether there is a problem to address at all. In 
everything we do, we should also consider the unintended 
consequences, not merely the intended outcomes of our policy 
prescription.
    Government mandates or increasing liability for employment 
that the Paycheck Fairness Act would do are most likely to 
backfire on the very same people those policies are intended to 
help. The best thing the policymakers can do is to expand 
choices and create the regulatory conditions that allow our 
economy to thrive, creating more opportunities for workers, 
which expands the number and quality of jobs available to them, 
and increases the negotiating power.
    I refer the committee to my written testimony for an 
analysis of various policy proposals to address the gender wage 
gap, and welcome any questions. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mrs. Boccia appears in the 
Submissions for the Record on page 62.]
    Chairman Beyer. Mrs. Boccia, thank you very much.
    Now that we are finished with the official testimony, we 
will begin our questioning. I get to go first. And I want to 
leverage, first off, my friend Senator Lee's pointing out about 
his remarkable daughter, which I very much appreciate. I am 
talking about my remarkable grandmother only because she was 
charged by Frances Perkins to standing up to the Bureau of 
Labor Standards. So it was fun many years later to see her come 
back around for all of you. All the way to the Director of our 
Joint Economic Committee and staff, our Executive Director is 
Tamara Fucile, another strong woman, leading us in the right 
direction.
    I have been a boss and an employer in the private sector 
for 45 years. I am having trouble with this notion of how 
diminished workplace flexibility is somehow an unreasonable 
cost for paying women their fair share.
    Ms. Poo, can you talk to me, number one, about all the 
benefits that those care workers are getting, the health care 
benefits, and the paid sick leave, and all those other things? 
Is this real, at all?
    Ms. Poo. It certainly is not real in the domestic work 
context. Eighty-two percent of domestic workers came into the 
pandemic without a single paid sick day. And so what we saw was 
just dramatic losses in jobs and income immediately, as the 
stay-at-home orders came down because that work is, by 
definition, work that has to be done in person. It cannot be 
done remotely.
    And very few domestic workers had access to health care. 
Only one in 10. So we have a situation where workers are 
piecing it together in order to survive and do not have access 
to benefits or a safety net.
    Chairman Beyer. Let me push on one thing. Ms. Boccia, you 
pointed out that in a perfect economic world our wages are 
determined by our productivity, by our contribution to society. 
Is there any reason to think that somebody sitting behind a 
desk on Wall Street is making a greater contribution, or is 
working harder, is more productive than somebody taking care of 
a child, or somebody with Alzheimer's?
    Ms. Poo. What I see when I see home care workers and 
domestic workers at work is essential work that is about 
meeting the fundamental human needs of our loved ones across 
their life spans. I cannot think of a more valuable job than 
nurturing the human potential of our children, or supporting 
the independence and dignity of a person with disabilities to 
be able to live a full and whole life in the community, or the 
dignity and quality of life of our aging parents and 
grandparents who have given us our quality of life.
    So I think it is incredibly fundamental and valuable work, 
and certainly as valuable as people who sit behind a desk on 
Wall Street.
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you. Again, Mrs. Boccia had mentioned 
about some of the pay differential may be because we make 
different choices.
    Dr. Holder, do you see people who were raised in poverty, 
after 400 years of discrimination, having the same choices 
available to them as my children, or Senator Lee's children?
    Dr. Holder. It may appear superficially that all women, 
regardless of race, ethnicity, disability, have the same 
places. But in reality, when we talk about class differences, 
income differences, the likelihood is that because the poverty 
rate occurs in the Black community, the types of colleges that 
young Black adults go to may not be as prestigious as the ones 
that young White adults go to, and that would be the same for 
young Black women and young White women.
    So we have free choice, but within a system that is 
inherently inequitable and has been historically so. And that 
is what limits our choices.
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you very much.
    Dr. Kim, you talk about pay transparency. I have always 
been impressed with the idea that where there is real pay 
transparency in the Federal Government, in the military, there 
is the smallest amount of wage differentiation between the men 
and the women. What is wrong with taking that pay transparency 
idea throughout our greater economy?
    Dr. Kim. I think it is a great idea to do that. Many 
countries have a lot more pay transparency than we do, and 
people certainly should not be fired for asking how much people 
earn who are in similar jobs, and that is what the Paycheck 
Fairness Act was about.
    Chairman Beyer. One of the things I think that Mrs. Boccia 
mentioned was that employers first look to external equity as 
they try to set pay rates. So the second they looked to 
internal equity, it is the internal equity that seemed to be 
lacking.
    I am very grateful for all of your comments, they were 
terrific. And I would like to move on to last year's Chair of 
the Joint Economic Committee and a future chair, I am sure, 
Senator Lee the floor is yours.
    Senator Lee. Thanks so much, Mr. Chairman.
    Mrs. Boccia, I would like to start with you. You shared 
some of your personal story with us as part of your testimony. 
I know that in addition to overcoming a whole lot of obstacles 
as a first-generation immigrant, you graduated in economics, a 
somewhat male-dominated field, and then went on to lead an 
economic research department at a major think tank here in our 
Nation's capital. Can you tell us a little bit more about your 
experience as a professional woman? Tell us a little bit about 
how you see both the opportunity and the challenges that 
professional women face?
    Mrs. Boccia. Thank you, Senator Lee. I think I want to play 
off of women today, and I employed a woman while I was at the 
Heritage Foundation. And some of the women I employed who had 
also several children were some of the most productive 
employees that I had. And so I do not believe there is anything 
in gender that would explain pay differences, other than 
different choices and the different experiences that we have.
    And one thing that we do find is that women find 
flexibility incredibly important. And in my personal 
experience, I have found that you have to not only work really 
hard, but you also have to negotiate your worth. And that is 
something where women do not always advocate for themselves 
most effectively, which is why I have made it part of my 
mission to be a mentor to young women to help them understand 
the power that they have in the workplace if they work hard, if 
they study, if they educate themselves they can increase their 
bargaining power. And, how they can negotiate not just their 
wages but also the conditions under which they work, including 
flexibility. And some of the examples we heard about the 
Federal Government and a unionized environment, those are 
exactly the kinds of rigid environments that do not allow for 
those differences between men and women and the flexibility 
that the different genders value in different ways because of 
childcare responsibilities.
    And so many of the proposals that we heard, like the 
Paycheck Fairness Act, would impose more of those rigid 
structures. And we have seen even pay transparency in countries 
like Denmark. Yes, it has led to a narrowing of the gender wage 
gap, but at the cost of productivity, and at the cost of higher 
wages for everyone, men and women, who were made worse off as a 
result of this law.
    So from my personal experience, and also from the research 
that I have done, I believe that men and women get compensated 
fairly if they advocate for themselves, and if the economy 
provides them with enough options so that if you work for an 
employer who does not recognize your worth, you have the option 
to find alternative employment. And entrepreneurship is such a 
key ingredient to that, ultimately.
    Senator Lee. Thank you. That is helpful. Now in the 
testimony you gave to the Republican Policy Committee working 
back in 2016, I believe, you described some differences in what 
men and women value and look for and seek out. For example, you 
noted some findings from a Pew Research study that found that 
70 percent of working mothers in the United States say that 
they value flexibility in their employment, compared to about 
50 percent of men who said the same thing.
    You also noted that men value a high-paying career, in many 
cases more than women do. From your perspective, what was 
that--does that tell us anything about whether that is 
acceptable for men and women to have different preferences 
about their work lives than men?
    Mrs. Boccia. I think we should celebrate and respect those 
differences that they clearly have. Women do, especially 
working mothers, value flexibility much more highly. And they 
also value the ability to work part-time much more highly. And 
men, in part our society has imposed this on men. Socialization 
and culture have made it such that we expect men to provide for 
the family, even though we now have many female breadwinners, 
as well. And those preferences clearly play a role in men, for 
example, choosing higher risk occupations that reward them for 
taking those risks and doing unpleasant jobs like working on 
oil rigs, and in construction, more likely so than women with 
higher pay. And women have chosen more mission-driven work, and 
often that means a nonprofit. And then care-taking jobs where 
wages tend to not be as high, or some of their compensation 
comes in the form of benefits. None of that is taken into 
account when we look at the gender wage gap.
    Senator Lee. What does it tell us? When you look at 
statistics indicating that when you compare average women's 
earnings to average men's earnings over the course of their 
career? They find that women's earnings are similar to or even 
greater than men's earnings before parenthood, but then that 
changes after the birth of their first child. What does that 
tell us?
    Mrs. Boccia. It tells us very clearly that when men and 
women have similar preferences early on in their careers, just 
coming out of college for example, we especially see young 
women, college-educated in major metropolitan areas now, out-
earning men sometimes by two digits. And once women have 
children, they are more likely to reduce their hours and that 
is reflected in their earnings because they work fewer hours. 
They might even step down from a higher-responsibility job to 
taking on something that allows them to spend more time with 
their children. All of that has an impact.
    But when men and women choose the same pathways, we find 
that those discrepancies disappear. Again, preferences also 
need to be taken into account in terms of the industries that 
women choose.
    Senator Lee. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see my 
time has expired.
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Senator Lee, very much. We will 
now move on I believe to Senator Heinrich. But in passing, I 
just want to point out that Denmark was just rated the second 
happiest country in the world by Gallup. So they seem to be 
doing some things pretty well.
    Senator Heinrich.
    Senator Heinrich. Thank you for that, Chairman.
    Dr. Holder, I wanted to ask you about this idea that you 
would almost believe from some of the conversation here that 
you cannot do statistically valid research in this area because 
there are all these hidden choices being made; that you cannot 
get to an apples-to-apples comparison.
    You do a lot of research in this area. Obviously you have 
to control for different variables. Can you talk to us about 
your view of what an apples-to-apples comparison looks like?
    Dr. Holder. I sure thank you for that question. As an 
economist, I am trained in techniques which will, when I am 
trying to compare outcomes between two groups, I can control 
for certain variables that might influence the outcome.
    So, for example, in my research where I compared Black 
working women, full-time working women, and non-Hispanic White 
full-time working men, some of the variables that--economic 
lingo, forgive me for that--but some of the variables that 
would contribute to a gender wage gap would include things like 
age, work experience, educational attainment, whether they are 
married, whether the worker is married, whether the worker has 
children. Whether the worker has small children. Where does the 
worker live?
    So in my research, I use several methodologies which 
control for the very thing that would contribute to the gender 
wage gap. And even given that, I still find a differential 
between, in my research, White full-time working men and Black 
full-time working women that cannot be explained by having 
children, that cannot be explained by a difference in 
educational attainment, that cannot be explained by work 
experience, length of work experience. All of those things have 
been taken into account. And what I still find is that after 
all of those contributing factors which might explain why a 
White male would earn more than a Black female in the same 
occupation, given the same characteristics, I have taken that 
into account.
    And in fact, in my research I use three different 
methodologies, and the final methodology is actually a really 
sophisticated one that pairs White men and Black women with 
very similar characteristics in the same occupations, and there 
is still a differential in pay that cannot be ascribed to 
anything else but bias treatment.
    Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Dr. Holder. Ms. Poo, I want to 
ask you. We heard one of our panelist question is there a 
problem here at all? I would love to get your perspective on 
that. And then the issue of, if only women were better 
negotiators all of this might go away.
    Ms. Poo. Two things. On the negotiation side in the 
domestic work context, there is no job security, no clear 
agreements or contracts, and therefore in attempting to 
negotiate for something as simple as a sick day, you risk 
losing your job. And so what we hear time and time again is 
pervasive fear of asking for something as simple as an 
afternoon off to go to your child's PTO meeting, to a race, an 
annual race. And people will not do it because they will risk 
losing their jobs. They lack the power to negotiate in the 
workplace.
    And secondly, this idea that women are choosing lower-paid 
work because of benefits and other forms of compensation, that 
is just simply not true for this entire sector of care work. 
Wages are low, and benefits are virtually nonexistent.
    Senator Heinrich. And in your view would the Paycheck 
Fairness Act make these inherent discrepancies better, or 
worse, for women in these positions?
    Ms. Poo. I think it would make them better.
    Senator Heinrich. Transparency seems to be a fundamental 
issue here, Dr. Kim. Do you think that there is power, and even 
power with respect to negotiation, in that transparency?
    Dr. Kim. Absolutely. If you know what other people are 
being paid, you can negotiate better. But I want to say 
something about that, as well. If women try to negotiate, often 
they are fired because they are seen as too aggressive. So 
women are really viewed and treated differently than men. It is 
not that we do not negotiate as well as men. And also, you 
know, when you find women start out equal to men, five years 
later, they are not. And it is not because they have kids, it 
is because they are not trained or promoted or mentored. So 
again, different treatment is another big, big explanation.
    And finally, I just wanted to add to the earlier discussion 
that, like Dr. Holder said, there are controls for hours 
worked, for productivity, even preferences, and you still find 
a gender wage gap. It is really different treatment with subtle 
biases, and the government should have policies to stop this 
kind of discrimination--that cannot continue.
    Senator Heinrich. Thank you for holding this hearing, 
Chairman Beyer. I really appreciate it.
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Senator, very much. Now let me 
recognize my friend from Arizona, Congressman Schweikert.
    [Pause.]
    Representative Schweikert. Alright, I assume we can hear me 
now. Sorry about that. And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I am actually fascinated with this subject. And, Don, you 
and I should have a side conversation, because I think we are 
actually in both the witnesses that have been chosen, and some 
of the narrow cast, we have missed some of the point, some of 
the generational changes that are happening. But also, I fear 
we should be talking about the working poor even more, and some 
of the dynamics there, because of the bleeding effect.
    And so I want to walk through just a couple quick 
questions. Doctor--and forgive me if I mispronounce the name, 
Boccia--help me there?
    [Pause.]
    Chairman Beyer. I think it is Boccia.
    We lost your audio again.
    Representative Schweikert. Okay, am I back at all?
    Mrs. Boccia. Yes.
    Representative Schweikert. Can you hear me now?
    Mrs. Boccia. Yes.
    Representative Schweikert. Alright, sorry about that. I am 
having to do this on an iPhone because my iPad crashed on me, 
believe it or not, so we are doing a little juggling here.
    I sat down with an ASU grad student. She was a quant, which 
is rather neat, and we were actually talking about adjustments, 
And this would be interesting also for Dr. Holder, and she was 
actually fixated on the number of adjustments that you would 
make, and looking for adjustments that were not traditionally 
in the literature of the subject.
    And one I still remember is driving distances. Males being 
willing to drive further distances for the similar position. 
And then she actually tried to build a level of confidence. For 
those of us in the political world, we would consider your 
polling variant. There is no question of her final numbers. 
There was an income differential between males and females.
    I was surprised how small it was. So if I came to you and 
asked you to build these tables, how many different adjustments 
would you look to, you know, by that term centeris paribus, the 
differentials between males and females, and trying to create 
that ultimate adjustment.
    You know, she was up to I think approaching 60 different 
adjustments, what should the literature actually have?
    Mrs. Boccia. I think this is a very interesting question, 
and I do not have a numeric answer for you. But what I do know 
is that there are unexplained factors that we have not yet been 
able to measure. And I applaud the student that you just talked 
with about this, trying to explain more of those. We also found 
a very similar result in looking at Uber drivers, male and 
female Uber drivers. And some of the explanatory factors there 
were how late those drivers were willing to drive. Men were 
more likely to drive at night when there was surge pricing. 
They were more likely to drive longer distances, and they had a 
longer experience, more tenure as Uber drivers, all of which 
raised their pay.
    So there are unexplained factors. And even during the Obama 
Administration, the Labor Department did a very extensive study 
and identified that between 3 and 5 percent was unexplained 
after accounting for simple factors. And then you can get more 
complicated. But we have not yet found a comprehensive step of 
measures that we should be considering.
    Representative Schweikert. And we have the tyranny of the 
clock. Dr. Holder, if you ever--I have actually had--and 
forgive me for not being disciplined enough--I have been 
reading some of your, because I know you have worked very hard 
in trying to model all this, I may send--with your 
permissions--I may send you a couple of notes with some geeky 
stuff asking how you would adjust this. I was a failed person 
who thought he could do statistics.
    Ms. Poo. I actually have one quick one with my last couple 
of minutes here. Thank you for representing the workers you do. 
But my understanding, we have been looking at the numbers of 
what happens particularly to the working poor, also in the 
professions you are looking at, and what we were seeing was 
population dynamics.
    If you have lots of workers with very moderate to low skill 
sets vying for jobs in certain urban areas, we saw a wage 
depression, a deflation. If we look at 2018-19 when there was a 
tremendous demand in our economy for those with what we will 
call moderate skill sets--and I am trying to find the nice way 
to say those things--we saw dramatic increases. I mean, think 
of African-American women in 2019, and 2018 the chart just 
blows off the chart. I have an intense concern with what is 
happening with immigration right now, particularly being from 
Arizona.
    Do you see a suppression of workers' wages in the skill set 
you represent when you add potentially a million folks to the 
U.S. economy with similar skill sets?
    Ms. Poo. Well what I can say is that there is a huge 
demand, for example, for personal care for the growing aging 
population. We have 10,000 Baby Boomers turning 65 per day, and 
people living longer than ever before. Ninety percent of 
Americans, according to----
    Representative Schweikert. But that is actually not--we 
understand the population side, 10,300 a day turning 65. But it 
is still a dynamic of scarcity, you know, that moves the value 
of that labor. When you are in those categories, you are 
selling your labor. And when you add dramatic population 
increases with similar skill sets, you devalue their labor.
    We have some great charts and statistics. I have been 
looking at this over the last decade. My latest math is it is 
going to take seven years for the working poor just to get the 
income back up for just what has happened so far in the last 
fiscal year at our borders.
    Ms. Poo. I think what I was trying to say----
    Representative Schweikert. I say we do not hear more of 
that.
    Ms. Poo. Well what I was trying to say is that we have such 
a huge demand for elder care in the home and communities that 
it does not actually according to your logic, make sense that 
the average annual income is $18,000 per year for this 
workforce.
    Representative Schweikert. Oh, no. No, I am with you. I 
believe this is a population that is underpaid. I am just 
also--I have a fixation on working poor, what we do to make 
them less poor. And almost all the proposals do not actually 
help that population. They sound great on a brochure, but there 
is no math that says they help the working poor.
    Chairman Beyer. I am going----
    Representative Schweikert. And with that, Mr. Beyer, thank 
you. I yield back.
    Chairman Beyer. This has become a bigger discussion. But 
now let me recognize the Senator from Minnesota, Senator 
Klobuchar.
    Senator Klobuchar. Well thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 
I know she was introduced at the beginning, but I wanted to 
particularly congratulate Tamara Fucile. She used to work for 
me many, many years ago, and I know she will do a fantastic job 
for you as staff director.
    I wanted to start with Dr. Holder. There you are. And I 
think one of the things this pandemic has shed such a big 
magnifying glass on is just the difficulty for so many parents 
of balancing everything. And I always have this image of moms 
balancing their toddlers on their knees, and their laptops, and 
their desk is dad teaching their second graders how to use the 
mute button, which they do better than any of our Senators, 
honestly.
    And so my question is, I did this Marshall Plan for moms, 
which of course part of this is paid leave. And we really have 
not done enough in this area in Congress, and we have this 
possibility coming up in the next few months. Can you talk 
about how a paid leave policy could have helped during the 
pandemic, but also how it would help in the future to help 
address the gender wage gap?
    Dr. Holder. Well thank you, Senator Klobuchar. It is a 
pleasure to answer a question from you about the gender wage 
gap.
    I did spend a lot of time last year writing and talking 
about how working mothers in particular were affected by the 
pandemic. And one of the issues was the inability of some women 
who were required to work on-site, their inability to actually 
do that because their children were learning remotely. They 
were doing school from home.
    And so inevitably, some women who were primarily single 
parents were unable to fulfill the expectations of their jobs 
because they had to be home to take care of their children.
    So a paid leave policy. And might I just add, more 
affordable childcare availability will be such a benefit to 
working women. When we think about the fact that a third of 
women who work in this country are mothers, and so we need to 
do everything we can to support these workers.
    And I would not necessarily limit that to working women. I 
would say if a dad was a single parent and had caregiving 
responsibilities, these types of policies would benefit him as 
well. So I feel in this country we have not paid enough 
attention to the needs of working parents. And I think that the 
pandemic really exposed what their vulnerabilities are, what 
their needs are, and what is required so they can be full 
participants in the American work life. And, absolutely, paid 
leave would go very, very far in helping working parents, as 
well as affordable childcare.
    Senator Klobuchar. Very good. Thank you for that great 
answer. Ms. Poo, this kind of plays off what Dr. Holder was 
talking about here on the childcare issue. I mean we know, 
again another big magnifying glass during the pandemic, about 
the issue of childcare. And actually Senator Sullivan and I 
have a bipartisan bill on helping to train more workers and 
trying to address the shortage of affordable childcare.
    And so part of this is training, but a lot of it is wages 
to try to attract people to this occupation. So it is the 
double whammy. There is not enough childcare, and then we do 
not have enough people working in it, and then if they are not 
paid enough we are not going to get them to work in it.
    And so could you talk about--there are literal childcare 
deserts in some of the rural areas of my state where we would 
actually be able to add jobs as employers out there. Could you 
talk, Ms. Poo, about some policy solutions we should consider 
when it comes to increased pay for domestic workers, how we do 
that while still making childcare affordable? And the same kind 
of chicken-and-egg thing in the wages, making it affordable, 
and then also making sure we have the supply?
    Ms. Poo. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Senator Klobuchar, 
for your leadership on so many of these issues that are about 
equity and opportunity for women.
    There is a whole series of investments that we need to make 
in making childcare, quality childcare much more affordable and 
accessible to American families. And the American Families Plan 
that the President has put forward, and some parts of the 
American Jobs Plan, begin to make those investments. And I know 
there are a number of childcare bills in Congress that are 
about making childcare much more affordable and accessible. And 
I think that childcare funding at the Federal level should also 
be tied to rate cutting, and assurance that we are also raising 
the wages for childcare workers.
    What I see is that we end up losing some of our best care 
workers and care providers and early childhood educators to 
other low-wage service jobs because they simply cannot make 
ends meet doing this work, despite the fact that they see it as 
their calling.
    So raising the wages, improving access to benefits would be 
huge for this workforce.
    Senator Klobuchar. Right. Exactly. And I would think 
figuring out how to fund some of it so that you can still have 
it be affordable.
    Ms. Poo. Exactly.
    Senator Klobuchar. Alright, thank you very much. And thank 
you, Mr. Chairman. I just went a little bit over my time.
    Chairman Beyer. That is okay, Senator----
    Senator Klobuchar. We need to allow others to go. Alright, 
thank you.
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you very much. I now recognize the 
Senator from Texas, Senator Cruz, if you are with us. Thanks, 
Senator, the floor is yours.
    Senator Cruz. I am here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you 
to each of the witnesses here today. I want to address my 
initial question to Mrs. Boccia.
    Yesterday, the Senate voted on the Paycheck Fairness Act. 
And existing Federal law prohibits sex-based wage 
discrimination, quite rightly, but proponents of this bill say 
that it is necessary to close what they call the gender wage 
gap.
    You had previously written about the Paycheck Fairness Act, 
and the gender wage gap. Can you please explain in your 
judgment what are the real causes of the wage disparity, and 
whether that disparity is caused primarily by discrimination?
    Mrs. Boccia. Thank you, Senator Cruz. I have been writing 
about the Paycheck Fairness Act and the gender wage gap for 
over a decade. And I am very concerned by the provisions in the 
law that they would not in fact help women, but they would have 
the exact opposite effect.
    However, there are several provisions that would be 
welcomed by trial lawyers, including unlimited liability and 
the potential for unlimited punitive damages that could be 
imposed on employers even if we do not have evidence the 
differentials between what women and men get paid is due to 
discrimination, but due to a variety of explanatory factors. 
And that is where other provisions of the Paycheck Fairness 
Act, including some that seem innocuous like the Department of 
Labor collecting data based on what people get paid, based on 
their race and gender, and other protected factors. It may seem 
like that kind of transparency would not be an issue, but what 
we have found is that it seems to indicate that there is a 
problem where there is not necessarily one unless we have more 
data that explains where those differences come from.
    And what we find is that, when we account for measurable 
explanatory factors, the gender wage gap all but disappears. 
And even the small, unexplained gap is not necessarily due to 
discrimination but due to a variety of factors that we are not 
measuring.
    That is not to say that there is not a single individual in 
our economy that at times suffers discrimination due to bias or 
other factors, and there we already have legal protections in 
place. We do not need the Paycheck Fairness Act. I think it 
would do more harm than good. But more importantly, the math, 
because lawsuits I do not think are a good option. It is a very 
lengthy option, a very time-consuming option, a very tough 
option. And, that an affordable option for many workers that 
feel the best opportunities we can provide is to have a strong 
economy that allows for entrepreneurship, so that individuals, 
especially women, benefit greatly from being able to run their 
own businesses, set their own hours, so they can make the work-
life balance that works best for them.
    But also for men, entrepreneurship is key to create jobs in 
our economy. And that is where we should focus instead of 
increasing liability on employers, which would most likely 
result in lower pay for both men and women as employers have to 
recoup the cost of the higher insurance that the Paycheck 
Fairness Act would impose on them.
    Senator Cruz. So, Mrs. Boccia, one thing you said that was 
particularly troubling is you said in your expert judgment this 
legislation, if it were passed into law, would harm women and 
decrease the employment options for women in the workplace.
    Can you explain that, please?
    Mrs. Boccia. Yes. I think one of the very first things it 
would do is it would encourage employers to adopt more rigid 
pay structures. So the private sector would look more closely 
to unionized work environments, a comparative worth regime is 
another way of looking at it. Because so many of the 
differences that we cannot easily explain in the wages between 
men and women that arise from things such as different 
negotiation tactics, women choosing to work fewer hours, 
different hours, requesting more flexibility, and for employers 
to make that available is so important. Those things would go 
away first because it is hard for employers to potentially 
explain that those are not business necessities, and they could 
be subject to undue lawsuits that would be very costly.
    I also think it could potentially hurt women's potential to 
be hired in the first place because it would make us a greater 
statistical liability for the employer due to those factors.
    So I think it would hurt women's ability to participate in 
the workforce, and would also hurt their ability to negotiate 
the kinds of working conditions, including reduced hours, more 
flexibility, working from home occasionally, that is so 
important to them.
    Senator Cruz. Well, thank you. Now, look, I do agree that 
we should be concerned about wage growth. And we actually saw 
under the previous Administration with Republican-controlled 
majorities in both Houses, a staggering record of record-low 
unemployment, the lowest unemployment in half a century, the 
lowest unemployment for African Americans ever recorded, the 
lowest unemployment for Hispanics ever recorded, the lowest 
unemployment for Asian Americans ever recorded.
    We also saw women in poverty decreasing by $1.5 million. 
And compared to President Obama's second term, we saw wage 
growth growing 60 percent faster for women than it did under 
President Obama's second term. Mrs. Boccia, what policies 
implemented by President Trump and the Republican Congress 
contributed to that record low unemployment and that wage 
growth that the women saw across the country?
    Mrs. Boccia. The most vulnerable populations, including 
working women, and also minorities and individuals with 
disabilities benefit most from a booming economy. And one of 
the major policies implemented by the Trump Administration was 
the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. I think that has had an impact, but 
it was also a huge regulatory reduction in the burden that 
employers were facing, that entrepreneurs were facing. 
Regulation and red tape is a huge burden for workers, and 
employers, and the Trump Administration reduced that 
significantly when we saw such a strong economy.
    Senator Cruz. Very good. Thank you.
    Chairman Beyer. Senator, thank you very much. Let's now 
move on to our new Senator from Georgia, Senator and Reverend 
Warnock. The floor is yours.
    Senator Warnock. Thank you so very much, Chairman Beyer. A 
Bureau of Labor statistics study found that working women, 
particularly women of color, have been disproportionately 
affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, a pandemic that is now being 
called sheath session, as more than 11 million women lost their 
jobs and accounted for 55 percent of all job losses in April.
    Even in my home State of Georgia, we have seen increased 
job loss among women, with women filing 15 percent more of 
unemployment claims than men between April and November of 
2020. Further, state budget cuts and furloughs have 
disproportionately impacted women. This disparity will cause 
long-term damage and have consequences beyond our economy, 
spilling into housing, instability, food insecurity, and the 
well-being of our children.
    This sheath session, combined with the already large racial 
wage gap that Black and Brown women suffer from a double gap 
which you have written about, Dr. Holder, has proven disastrous 
for future wage growth for Black and Brown women. So 
disparities, and the history of disparities adds layer upon 
layer upon layer of disparities.
    Dr. Holder, in your testimony you mentioned prohibiting 
employers from requesting previous salary history as a possible 
solution. Why would this be a good policy for women in Georgia, 
and all across the country?
    Dr. Holder. Thank you, Senator and Reverend Warnock. It is 
a pleasure to answer a question from you on this issue. So the 
issue of--or why prohibiting employers from requesting previous 
salary histories would contribute to narrowing the gender wage 
gap, let me explain it this way.
    We do know that there is a gender wage gap. We may disagree 
on what the contributing factors are. If you have two 
applicants for a job, one a man and one a woman with similar 
characteristics, similar education attainment, similar work 
history, similar age, perhaps they are both parents, perhaps 
they are not. The issue is, because of the gender wage gap the 
likelihood that the female applicant's salary history will show 
a history of much lower earnings than the male applicant is 
simply why requesting previous salary histories has a disparate 
impact on female applicants for jobs.
    Women are simply--we earn on average less than men. We know 
that. And so if you have two candidates that are similarly 
qualified, a man and a woman, and you look at their salary 
histories that they supply as requested, the likelihood is the 
female candidate will have a salary history that shows lower 
wages than the male applicant.
    Senator Warnock. So being underpaid rather than skill and 
experience becomes a basis for being underpaid, and underpaid 
in the past, underpaid in the future.
    Ms. Kim, or Dr. Kim I should say, or Ms. Poo, either of you 
want to add to this?
    Thank you so much----
    Dr. Kim. I agree.
    Ms. Poo. I do, as well. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Warnock. Thank you very much. You know, we are all 
waiting with baited breath each month when these job numbers 
come out. But just to get the job numbers alone does not tell 
the whole story. We should ask what these numbers look like for 
women. And are these jobs providing equitable and liveable 
wages for women. What do these numbers look like for women of 
color? Which is why yesterday I was deeply disappointed that 
our colleagues on the other side were unwilling to even have a 
real debate about this, about the wage gap and the Paycheck 
Fairness Act, that we could not have an honest debate. I 
thought that was what we are here for. About how to unleash an 
economy that is fair, transparent, and equitable.
    So we have got to work together to do what we can to get 
equal pay in this country. I'm sorry, Dr. Kim.
    Dr. Kim. Yes, I agree with you. I only found out about that 
vote at the beginning of this meeting. But I do want to say 
that transparency and accountability has shown to reduce the 
wage gap because employers look at their practices and make 
sure they are not discriminatory. So it could be a positive 
thing to have transparency and accountability. But thank you.
    Senator Warnock. I thank all of you. Thank you for your 
work in this space. Thank you, Brother Chairman.
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Senator Warnock, very much. 
Yesterday's vote was disappointing, but it goes back to the 
fundamentally anti-democratic character of the filibuster, 
which is not included in our Constitution and never intended by 
our Founding Fathers.
    So with that, let me turn to my dear friend from Wichita 
and fellow Ways and Means Committee member, Mr. Estes.
    Representative Estes. Well thank you, Chairman Beyer, and 
thank you to all of our witnesses for joining us today.
    You know, America is known as the Land of Opportunity. For 
centuries, men and women have flocked to the country because of 
the freedoms allowed them and opportunity for a better life, 
and ability to provide for their families. When it comes to 
earning a living, both men and women make decisions about their 
employment. They look at the job opportunities and choose 
careers and industries based on their priorities and values.
    Some Americans prioritize flexibility in the workplace. 
Others reject jobs that are dangerous. And some want to ensure 
they have the ability to reach their earnings potential.
    As we talk today about the gender pay gap, we should not 
consider these numbers in a vacuum, nor should we assume we 
know all the factors an individual may choose as a priority.
    The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that women worked 10 
percent fewer hours than men in 2020. A Harvard study further 
concluded that women have greater demand for workplace 
flexibility and lower demand for overtime hours to work than 
men. Some estimates have the pay gap at 3 to 5 percent after 
accounting for these real-world factors, and even just a 2 
percent controlled pay gap in a recent report from 
PayScale.com.
    As we consider the best policies for our country, we need 
to include all of the data and not just look at a particular 
political narrative.
    With that in mind, and considering a much smaller adjusted 
pay gap, I would encourage my colleagues to seek solutions that 
promote economic growth for men and women. Legislation like the 
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) in 2017 focused on expanding 
opportunities for all Americans, helping families keep more of 
their hard-earned money, grow an economy like we have never 
seen before, and encourage entrepreneurialship and innovation.
    And in a short time, the TCJA over the year took the year-
to-year earnings growth for all workers that had been hovering 
around 2\1/2\ percent to an average of 3 percent, and it was 
peaking at 3\1/2\ percent. And on top of that, a record low 
unemployment for women. So that is why the Tax Cuts and Jobs 
Act resulted in record-low unemployment rates for more than 65 
years.
    Unfortunately, the pandemic has had consequences for all 
Americans. And because of the far-reaching shutdown measures 
taken by some governors and school unions refusing to let 
students return to in-person classrooms, the progress made by 
women through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act did experience a 
setback, and forcing school and childcare closures and we saw 
women across the country reduce their work hours, or leave the 
workforce entirely, to care for their children. For many, they 
had no other options.
    So now with the vaccinations up and the cases down, our 
country is returning to normal and we need to make sure that we 
focus on pro-growth economic opportunities.
    Mrs. Boccia, as I mentioned, women experienced wage growth 
and opportunities under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. What effect 
do you think that rolling back these policies would have on 
working women and their pay?
    Mrs. Boccia. I think it would have very negative effects, 
not just on working women but on all vulnerable populations, 
and populations that have special needs. And the discussions we 
are having today over new mandates, more government regulation 
to address a perceived gender wage gap that has not been fully 
explained, and where we do not--we cannot just ascribe it to 
discrimination but many other factors are at play, the 
unintended consequences are also creating uncertainty today 
even if those mandates and regulations do not go into effect 
immediately. Us talking about them and the political direction 
that the country has taken does impose an uncertainty on 
employers that makes them less likely to expand their 
businesses, which means fewer job opportunities and fewer jobs 
for these populations. And the more jobs that our economy can 
provide, and the higher quality jobs that it can provide, the 
greater negotiations our working women will have as well as 
other vulnerable populations.
    So that is why we should focus--and I could not agree more 
with you--on exploring the pro-growth economy that provides 
that certainty so that businesses will expand and create those 
job opportunities for all Americans.
    Representative Estes. I think the best way, obviously, to 
build wealth for working women is to provide greater 
opportunities, more economic choices, and to get Washington out 
of the way so we can return back to the booming economy we had 
before the pandemic.
    I know I am really short on time. I did not know--in your 
opening comments Mrs. Boccia, you made mention about you 
immigrated here because of the American dream. And now that we 
know the big gaps in other countries, the United States is 
pretty similar to Canada, and Finland, and the UK. Are there 
policies in particular--you know, it seems like there is not a 
big difference, but in the United States we still have better 
economic growth and better opportunity.
    Mrs. Boccia. I absolutely agree with that. And I love this 
country because it provides opportunities for everyone. And I 
come from Germany where we have very generous paid leave 
policies, and they have backfired on women in Germany. They are 
spending more time out of the labor force. They have more 
prolonged career interruptions, and women are less likely to be 
in managerial positions. And I am very happy and privileged to 
be in a managerial position as a woman, and for the 
opportunities that this country has provided to me.
    Representative Estes. Well, great. Thank you. And, Mr. 
Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Congressman. And now let me 
recognize the Senator from Arizona, Senator Kelly, for your 
questions.
    Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for 
having this committee hearing today.
    Dr. Kim, in Arizona on average women make 84 cents for 
every dollar that a man makes. And if you break that down and 
compare median earnings of women and men, Black women make 63 
percent of what the average White man makes. And Latinas? Just 
51 percent. And that is unacceptable.
    Last night we voted to consider the Paycheck Fairness Act, 
which would help address this by ensuring employers cannot 
compensate workers differently based on sex. Also, preventing 
companies from retaliating against workers who talk about how 
much money they make. And, making it illegal for employers to 
ask about salary history when hiring.
    So, Dr. Kim, could you speak to the impact of this 
legislation in Arizona and across the United States?
    Dr. Kim. I think there are a lot of very good things in 
that legislation, including outlawing pay secrecy, as you said, 
so you cannot be fired if you ask what other people make.
    As I said earlier, accountability and transparency reduce 
the gender wage gap, not only in setting pay but in performance 
appraisals which gives merit pay to people, all the way down 
the line. I think collecting data to see if there is a problem 
is absolutely important, because--and other countries are doing 
this, as well--and so I think this legislation would have been 
a step forward for women, and all employees across the country, 
in reducing the gender wage gap and racial wage gaps as well.
    And I was very much in favor of it, and I am sorry it did 
not pass. And unlike what people have been saying, you know, 
part of the gender wage gap obviously is because some women may 
work fewer hours, and may take time off to take care of their 
families, but when you control for all of these things you will 
find that women attending the same college, with the same GPA 
and college major, earn less than men. And why is that?
    I mean, there are these biases. I mean, if you look at a 
piece--if you have a piece of artwork, and you put a woman's 
name on that, and then you change it so that there is a man's 
name on it, it is ranked lower in quality when a woman's name 
is there.
    If you have a dossier with a resume and research, and you 
put a woman's name on it, they are less likely to be hired. 
They are less likely to get tenure for the exact same job 
history and work than men are than if you put a man's name on 
that work. We cannot get any clearer than this. We are treated 
differently. I do not think people mean to do that: it is just 
implicit bias. And our work is undervalued. And both men and 
women discriminate. Both men and women have these biases. So go 
online and take an implicit bias test, and an implicit race 
test. And I think in order to remedy this, we need policies to 
ensure that employers are not underpaying women, and that they 
are hiring, training, and promoting in their representative 
numbers.
    Senator Kelly. Dr. Kim, what do you think, if this 
legislation or something like it was signed into law, we are 
talking about 84 cents on the dollar, women compared to men, 63 
cents for Black women, 51 for Latinas. What do you think those 
numbers would have been if this legislation, or legislation 
like it, would be signed into law?
    Dr. Kim. Well, my own research finds that if you outlaw pay 
secrecy, the gender wage gap goes down. And then if you enforce 
nondiscrimination laws, if the agencies have more ability to 
investigate discrimination or potential discrimination, I think 
you get pretty close to parity. I mean, I think this would be a 
really good thing to pass.
    Senator Kelly. So you have seen the possibility of--I mean, 
if we went from 84 cents to let's say close to, you know, 
parity, that is upwards of about a 25 or so percent, actually a 
little less than that, but it is a significant pay raise for 
women.
    Dr. Kim. Well, let me just back off. The 80 percent is 
unadjusted for work hours, their occupation, everything else. 
If this were passed and the minimum wage were raised, I think 
we could get close to parity when you adjust for those factors. 
Also, what would the wage gap be by then? I do not know, maybe 
95 percent. If you do not adjust for that--well, I think we 
could get close if we just--if we can, again, enforce 
nondiscrimination, collect data, and make Federal contractors 
accountable.
    Senator Kelly. Well, thank you. Thank you, Dr. Kim, and Mr. 
Chairman. I apologize for going over on my time a little bit. 
Thank you.
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Senator, very much. And now our 
grand finale is the immediate past chair of the Congressional 
Progressive Caucus, your friend from Wisconsin, Congressman 
Pocan.
    Representative Pocan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, 
and thanks for your patience. All three of my hearings today, 
including one that started this morning, I was up within 10 
minutes of each other. So this has been an interesting--maybe 
it is lucky, that I should go to a casino this afternoon--but I 
am glad to be here. Thank you. I did get the chance to hear 
almost all the opening testimony in the middle of these 
hearings.
    Let me ask some questions specifically around minimum wage 
and the gender gap, because we have the Raise the Wage Act that 
passed through the House last session and again this session. 
How does the Federal Minimum Wage impact the gender wage gap 
specifically? And specifically also for women of color. If you 
could, address those questions around the minimum wage.
    Ms. Poo. Well certainly for domestic workers and care 
workers who earn less than, or on average between $10 and $12 
per hour, raising the minimum wage to $15 would be 
transformative. And it is worth noting that two-thirds of all 
minimum-wage workers are women, in fact. And women are 
disproportionately concentrated in jobs where wages are low and 
there are no benefits, no job security. And so raising the 
minimum wage and providing that baseline of economic security 
would be transformative certainly for domestic workers and care 
workers, but I think across the low-wage economy for women.
    Representative Pocan. Anyone else want to address that?
    [No response.]
    How would specifically the CHIPS wage--I mean, I have been 
an employer for 32 years. I have never understood how you can, 
for a couple of dollars an hour, hire someone and act almost as 
if they are independent contractors because they are going to 
make money on tips, And often that does not compensate for the 
wage they should be making for their time, and yet they are 
still basically under the direction of those jobs of the 
employers even at that incredibly low wage.
    Do you have any statistics on gender gap specifically 
around that sub-minimum, that tipped minimum wage? Ms. Poo, 
please.
    Ms. Poo. Well, I should say for sure that the CHIPS minimum 
wage creates a tremendous amount of vulnerability for women 
workers in the workforce, in the service economy. And there is 
a lot of data that Rock United, and the One Fair Wage Campaign 
had generated that talks about the reliance of women on tips to 
earn what should be a base wage. It leads to more 
vulnerability, to sexual harassment in the workplace, and all 
kinds of other problems that further exacerbate gender 
inequality in the workplace.
    So I think raising the minimum wage and eliminating the tip 
minimum wage, and also the sub-minimum wage for people with 
disabilities, so that we actually have one solid floor for 
every American worker upon which to build real economic 
security from I think is essential to our economic recovery.
    Representative Pocan. Let me ask also another bill that we 
passed for the last two sessions called the PRO Act. That was 
specifically allowing people to be able to organize in a much 
easier way. Right now there are an awful lot of obstacles to 
people actually getting to have an election to form a union. 
But there are many advantages to the employers.
    If we pass the PRO Act, what kind of an effect would that 
have, based on gender equity in pay?
    Ms. Kim.
    Dr. Kim. I will answer your first question first because I 
just unmuted. I actually am looking at the minimum wage, the 
effect on the wage gap, and so far I have found that if you 
increase it to $14.50 an hour--I did not even do $15 an hour--
it would mean either a 5 or an 8 point decline in the gender 
wage gap. So it would have an effect.
    In terms of unionization, women want to be in unions, and 
they are low paid, and making it easier for people to be in 
unions would definitely increase the pay for workers in 
increases like 10 to 30 percent, depending on where you are. It 
has a huge effect. So that would be helpful, as well.
    Representative Pocan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have 4 
seconds that I am going to yield back.
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Mr. Pocan, very much. Well that 
concludes us today. I want to thank each of our witnesses for 
this lively discussion. We have made important strides in 
advancing the conversation about the gender wage gap, how we 
value women's work, the solution to improve it.
    As we discussed today, there is no single solution to close 
the gender wage gap, although you do offer some very good 
solutions. And I believe at least that the persistence of the 
gap harms women's economic security and our economy's strength 
and growth. And I believe Congress must continue to work to 
narrow it and to close it.
    I will say, I know--I believe my friend Mr. Estes has been 
an employer, as Mr. Pocan was. When I left the family business 
to run for Congress, we had 330 people over 45 years, and 
always committed to equal pay. I confess I never saw a loss of 
flexibility, or how it restricted choices for any of those 
people.
    Now with my personal staff on the Hill and the Joint 
Economic Committee, more than half of those wonderful people 
are women. Again, they are among the highest paid people we 
have, I never again see how it restricted their choices or 
flexibility.
    And on comparable worth, you know there may be a downside 
to comparable worth. The upside is the perception of fairness. 
And what we are dealing with right now is an enormous gap in 
the perception of fairness between them.
    So I want to thank both of our economists, Dr. Holder, Dr. 
Kim, to help us understand the underlying causes of the gender 
wage gap and how it has changed over time, and how deeply we 
work to root it out and make sure that we really are comparing 
apples to apples. And of course developing policies that can 
help us ensure that women are compensated fairly for their 
work.
    And we did not have a chance to go into all of Senator 
Cruz's comments about the best wages, which was I believe 
accurate, but we look to see consistent wage growth every year 
from 2010 through today, month after month after month, as we 
continue to build this economy by the Democratic and Republican 
Presidents.
    So thank you to our advocate organizer, Ms. Poo, for 
offering deep insight into one sector of work dominated by 
female workers, especially women of color. And your insight 
into how care work serves as an understanding for lowest-paid 
and most valuable workers of our economy. They are one of the 
economy's fastest growing sectors, which is really valuable 
with so many policy discussions. So we need to get that right.
    So thank you, Mrs. Boccia, a double George Mason graduate 
in my District, for offering your perspective, and other 
factors to consider on this topic. And thank you for talking 
about the potential for unintended consequences that we always 
have to be mindful of.
    [WebEx interference.]
    Dr. Kim. I am having trouble hearing.
    Unidentified Voice. I am, as well.
    [WebEx interference.]
    Ms. Volk. I'm sorry. It seems we have lost the Congressman, 
and he has finished his concluding remarks. Thank you all for 
joining. Again, that is what happens with technology, but thank 
you all for joining and that will conclude the hearing.
    [Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., Wednesday, June 9, 2021, the 
hearing was adjourned.]

                       SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

 Prepared Statement of Hon. Donald Beyer Jr., Chairman, Joint Economic 
                               Committee
    This hearing will come to order. I would like to welcome everyone 
to today's hearing focused on the gender wage gap.
    I want to thank each of our distinguished witnesses for sharing 
their expertise today. We have an all-star panel, and I'm excited to 
hear what they say.
                              the context
    Today, on the eve of the 58th anniversary of the passage of the 
Equal Pay Act, American women on average still earn just 82 percent of 
what men earn. That translates to $10,000 less in median earnings each 
year. And while we have made improvements in narrowing that gap over 
the last 50 years, progress toward closing it has slowed and even 
stalled in recent decades as policy has failed to support women as 
workers and ensure that equal work is rewarded with equal pay.
    And not only that, but the top line number does not give us a full 
picture. Black women earn only 63 percent, Native American women 60 
percent, and Latina women only 55 percent of what White men earn.
    The failure to close the gender wage gap is not just an issue for 
the women experiencing this pay gap, it's also an issue for their 
families and for our whole economy.
    Women's earnings are a crucial component of families' economic 
security. Two-thirds of mothers are either the primary breadwinner or 
co-breadwinner in their families. And the Institute for Women's Policy 
Research estimates that if working women received equal pay with 
comparable men--that is, men of the same age, with the same education, 
who work the same hours, and live in similar regions--then poverty for 
working women would be reduced by more than 40 percent.
    This is an issue for our whole economy because women's lost wages 
translate into lost GDP, 2.8 percent of GDP to be specific, or $541 
billion.
    Therefore, if long-term economic growth is our goal, then closing 
the gender wage gap is not just a moral imperative, it is an economic 
one.
                               the cause
    If we are to properly address this persistent wage gap, we must 
understand it. So, let's look at the root causes . . .
    First, economists estimate that half of the gender wage gap is 
still caused by differences in the types of industries and occupations 
that women and men work in. For example, men are overrepresented in 
jobs in construction and software development, and women are 
overrepresented in jobs such as administrative assistants and cashiers.
    But while some point to this as evidence that the gender wage gap 
is due to women making different choices about their careers, the 
reality is that even within the same industry and same occupation, 
women are still paid less than men. As an example, research finds that 
up to 68 percent of the gender pay gap could be closed if men and women 
were paid equally within occupations--that is, men and women received 
equal pay for equal work.
    And explanations of the gap that point to individual 
characteristics or choices only account for part of the problem. When 
you add up all the measurable explanations for the gender wage gap, 
including differences in occupation and industry, or accounting for 
education and length of work experience, 38 percent of the gender wage 
gap remains ``unexplained,'' which many economists attribute to 
discrimination.
    Finally, when seeking to understand the gender wage gap, we cannot 
ignore the role played by our economy's de-valuation of work that has 
traditionally been done by women, particularly women of color. Care 
work is among some of the lowest paid work in our economy. The Bureau 
of Labor Statistics estimates that the median pay for home health and 
personal care aides is $27,080 a year, which is barely above the 
poverty level for a family of four. Perhaps not coincidentally, women 
of color make up a disproportionate share of care workers. For example, 
Black women are 13 percent of the U.S. workforce, but 28 percent of 
home care workers.
                       proposals to make progress
    Addressing the gender wage gap will require a multi-faceted 
approach. No single policy is going to close it, but there are many 
policies that, together, will help narrow it.
    Raising wages in low-paying occupations that tend to be dominated 
by women would provide the greatest benefit to the women in these jobs 
while also benefiting all workers. An important way we can do this is 
by strengthening the minimum wage and improving workers' bargaining 
power, such as through legislation like the Raise the Wage and PRO 
Acts.
    Gender and racial discrimination are the second largest driver of 
the gender pay gap. Therefore, policies that address the ongoing role 
of discrimination in the labor market will be absolutely necessary to 
make a meaningful difference in the pay gap. The Paycheck Fairness Act 
is one example of a policy that would make it easier for women to 
challenge pay discrimination.
    Finally, we also need policies that help keep women connected to 
the labor market and moving up the career ladder, such as paid leave 
and affordable childcare. We cannot make progress toward narrowing the 
gender pay gap if we do not make it sustainable for women to remain in 
the workforce through policies like the Building an Economy for 
Families Act, the FAMILY Act, or the Child Care for Working Families 
Act, which are aimed at ensuring that all workers are able to take the 
time they need to care for their families and make sure their children 
are receiving quality care while they are at work.
    And this is why I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses. 
Now I would like to turn it over to Senator Lee for his opening 
statement.
                               __________
  Prepared Statement of Hon. Mike Lee, Ranking Member, Joint Economic 
                               Committee
    Good afternoon and thank you to Chairman Beyer for convening 
today's hearing on this topic.
    Women make unique and invaluable contributions to our families, 
communities, and workplaces. And, thankfully, the opportunities for 
women in the workplace have grown tremendously over time.
    The female labor force participation rate has doubled over the last 
50 years. And American women have not simply joined the workforce but 
they have excelled and become leaders in it. In fact, the United States 
has a higher share of female managers than almost every other OECD 
nation.
    I myself am fortunate to benefit from the skills and expertise of 
my female chief of staff, female legislative director, female chief 
counsel, and female staff director here on the Joint Economic 
Committee. So, I am personally grateful for the fruits of women's 
economic progress and freedom. Additionally, I am the father of an 
unbelievably gifted and intellectually curious daughter. For this and 
many other reasons, fairly valuing women's important contributions is a 
particularly important issue to me.
    The gender pay gap is the topic that brings us here today, and the 
pay gap is frequently a focal point in conversations about women's 
labor market experiences. Although the pay gap can tell us some things 
about women's experiences at work, we know that--like many metrics--the 
pay gap has substantial limitations. If--as a society--we truly care 
about supporting and empowering women, then it is crucial that we 
understand what those limitations are, and what this measure can and 
cannot tell us.
    For example, although the pay gap indicates that the average man 
and average woman earn different amounts, the headline number does not 
tell us why this is the case. We know that industry, occupation, years 
of experience, educational attainment, geographic location, and family 
decisions all matter greatly for pay. Some of these characteristics 
vary for the average man and average woman and contribute in 
significant ways to the pay gap.
    One of the largest drivers of the pay gap seems to be that men and 
women work in different industries and in different occupations. 
Caretaking responsibilities also play an outsized role--before the 
birth of their first child, women make the same on average as men, but 
afterward, working mothers' earnings diverge from working fathers' 
earnings, reflecting fewer hours worked and other changes.
    Although some of women's decisions regarding their education, 
occupation, industry, and engagement with the labor force may be 
influenced by cultural pressures and expectations, this does not 
necessarily mean that employers are discriminating on the basis of 
gender.
    Still, women cannot make as many decisions as they should be able 
to when it comes to their work life. And government policy needs to get 
out of the way and allow employers to provide the flexibility that 
working mothers say they want.
    A path forward lies in policymakers at the Federal, state, and 
local level removing the government barriers that currently limit 
choice and opportunity for women. Reforming regulations that get in the 
way of flexible work can greatly increase opportunity--this type of 
reform would help all workers, but especially working women, who 
surveys indicate prioritize flexibility in order to care for their 
families.
    Passing the Working Families Flexibility Act would be a step in the 
right direction to help women and other workers. For decades, Federal 
labor laws have unfairly restricted working parents in the private 
sector from choosing either traditional overtime pay or paid time off 
as compensation for overtime hours worked, while granting a special 
exemption for government employees. The Working Families Flexibility 
Act would correct this disparity to give that same opportunity to all 
working moms and dads.
    In addition to passing the Working Families Flexibility Act, 
policymakers should reform home-based business zoning, which stifles 
entrepreneurship. While home-based businesses have multiplied in recent 
decades--currently making up half of all businesses--many remain 
``underground'' since they are illegal under current law. An incredible 
17% of Black women and 10% of White women are entrepreneurs, and so 
regulatory reform to ease these burdensome rules would be especially 
helpful in clearing the path for their success.
    Occupational licensing laws also constitute a major barrier to 
work, and reform is necessary to eliminate onerous requirements for 
jobs that can be done with little risk to workers and those that they 
serve.
    Another area in need of reform is childcare--there are many 
unnecessary regulations that drive up the cost of care. Some laws 
impose unnecessary education requirements on daycare workers or 
increase staff-to-child ratios, making it far more difficult for 
families to afford care and preventing some women from working. Passing 
the Child Care Worker Opportunity Act would help to address this issue 
for working moms and childcare workers in the Washington, D.C., area.
    Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention the Paycheck 
Fairness Act, which yesterday the Senate voted not to take up. If we 
care about women's long-term success, it seems important that we 
consider the unintentional impacts that this bill would likely have, 
and how it may result in more rigid compensation structures that 
translate into less flexibility in the workplace and fewer of the work 
arrangements that women and many men value.
    In addition to reforming regulatory barriers, recent history tells 
us that growth in opportunities for female workers translates to higher 
wages, new jobs, and a narrowing of the pay gap. Just in the years 
before the pandemic, pro-growth policies--like lower taxes and 
regulatory reforms--helped sustain a strong labor market for American 
workers. Women, and especially women of color, benefited the most. They 
experienced some of the fastest job growth and largest wage gains on 
record.
    Rebuilding after the pandemic will be challenging but we know that 
markets, supported by commonsense policies, are the best way to support 
female workers and allow them to build on their decades of progress in 
the workplace.
    As we seek to empower women in the workplace, it is essential that 
we support these pro-growth policies and protect workplace flexibility. 
I am hopeful that today's hearing will help us better understand how to 
meet women's and working mother's needs, and how to develop policies 
that empower them to continue building on their many achievements.
    I look forward to hearing the insights of our witnesses on this 
important topic.
    Thank you.
    
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