[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 42 (Thursday, April 10, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E628-E629]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                INTRODUCTION OF THE FAIR PAY ACT OF 1997

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 10, 1997

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today I reintroduce the Fair Pay Act [FPA], 
a bill that would require employers to pay equal wages to employees in 
comparable jobs in an effort to remedy the pay inequities which women 
continue to endure. I introduce the bill today, the day before Pay 
Inequity Day, because that is the day on which women finally earn what 
men earned in the previous calendar year. I have introduced this 
legislation each Congress with increasing support in both the House and 
the Senate, and I hope to have even more support in the 105th Congress. 
The bill already has 25 original cosponsors.
  American families are becoming more and more dependent on women's 
wages. Today, 40 percent of all working women have children under 18. 
In two-parent families, 66 percent of the women work, and the number of 
female-headed households has more than doubled since 1970.
  Although most American families today must rely heavily on women's 
wages, women continue to earn less than their male counterparts

[[Page E629]]

with comparable qualifications. Women complete more schooling than men 
but earn only 72 cents for each dollar earned by men. Although the wage 
gap has slowly narrowed over the years, much of the gap is not closing 
for women at all but is due to the decline in men's wages. Much of the 
rest of the progress can be traced to earnings of a small group of 
professional or highly skilled women. The average woman has seen little 
if any progress. Over her lifetime, a woman loses over $420,000 due to 
pay inequity, and collectively, women--and therefore often their 
families--lose more than $100 billion in wages each year because of 
wage discrimination.
  The Equal Pay Act (EPA) was passed in 1963, and by focusing on pay 
disparities where men and women were doing the same (or similar) jobs, 
its enforcement has helped narrow the wage gap between men and women. 
The Fair Pay Act takes the Equal Pay Act one step further and seeks to 
confront the pay disparity problem of the 1990's the way the EPA 
confronted the equal pay problem in the 1960's.
  The FPA recognizes that if men and women are doing comparable work, 
they should be paid the same. If you are an emergency services 
operator, a female-dominated profession, for example, you should not be 
paid less than a fire dispatcher, a male-dominated profession, simply 
because you are a woman and he happens to be a man. If you are a social 
worker, a traditionally female occupation, you should not earn less 
than a probation officer simply because you are a woman.
  The FPA, like the EPA, will not tamper with the market system. As 
with the EPA, the burden will be on the plaintiff to prove 
discrimination. She must show that the reason for the disparity between 
herself and a man doing comparable work in her workplace is sex--or 
race--discrimination, not legitimate market factors.
  As women's employment becomes an increasingly significant factor in 
the diminishing real dollar income of American families, fair pay 
between the sexes for comparable employees escalates in importance. 
This new paycheck frontier must be conquered for women and their 
families. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

                          ____________________