[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 47 (Tuesday, April 3, 2001)]
[House]
[Page H1393]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             PAY EQUITY DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Millender-McDonald) is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Pay 
Equity Day and to focus attention on the need for pay equity.
  Mr. Speaker, women across this country are speaking out on the 
importance of Pay Equity Day as data has shown that women must work 
almost 7 working days to earn what men earn in only 5 days. 
Appropriately, I am introducing legislation that will require Federal 
agencies to undertake studies that examine pay inequities and identify 
institutional barriers that can be lifted in order to diminish this 
disparity.
  Women make up more than half of this Nation's workforce. Yet, 38 
years after passage of the Equal Pay Act, women still receive about 76 
cents to each dollar paid to men. That means that women have to work 15 
extra weeks in 2001 to earn what men earned in the year 2000.
  For women of color, the gap is even wider. Black women earn 65 
percent and Hispanic women 52 percent of white men's weekly earnings. 
The wage gap widens as women mature and has significant implications 
for life-long savings, Social Security, and retirement earnings. Thus, 
lower pay is not the only source of difficulty. A higher percentage of 
women than men work in service, nonunion jobs, and part-time jobs, 
where pensions are less likely to be offered.
  Additionally, while women no longer routinely drop out of the labor 
force for child-bearing and child-rearing, more women than men leave 
work to care for children, elderly parents, or spouses. All of these 
factors take their toll.
  In the private sector, only 31 percent of retired women age 65 or 
older have a pension, and the median benefit received by women who have 
pensions is only 38 percent of the median amount received by men. 
Financial worries are exacerbated by the fact that women tend to live 
longer than men so their retirement assets must spread over a longer 
period of time. Clearly, there is something seriously wrong when women 
age 65 and older are twice as likely to live in poverty as their male 
counterparts.
  Today, there are nearly 6 million women business owners. They are the 
fastest growing segment of small business development in this Nation. 
Between 1987 and 1999, the National Foundation for Women Business 
Owners estimated that the number of women-owned firms increased by 82 
percent nationwide. However, women still have less access to credit and 
are less likely to receive financing than men. This is a severe barrier 
to business growth, Mr. Speaker, and ultimately prosperity. We must 
recognize that when women thrive, our Nation prospers and families are 
strengthened.
  Women comprise more than half the world's population. We account for 
the majority of new workers in both industrialized and developing 
countries. When women are guaranteed basic human and labor rights, 
whole families and communities benefit. When women gain knowledge, 
power, and equal resources to make their own choices, the chains of 
poverty will be broken.

                              {time}  1945

  This is how progress is generated. This is how lasting prosperity is 
built and measured.
  Mr. Speaker, I will end with the words of Supreme Court Justice Ruth 
Bader Ginsberg who said, ``Bias, both conscious and unconscious, 
reflecting traditional and unexamined patterns of thought, keeps up 
barriers that must come down if equal opportunity and nondiscrimination 
are ever genuinely to become this Nation's law and practice.''
  Fighting for pay equity and advancing the status of women is not just 
a social and moral issue, Mr. Speaker, it is an economic imperative, 
and it is long overdue.

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