[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 77 (Monday, May 4, 2026)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E412]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                INTRODUCTION OF THE FAIR PAY ACT OF 2026

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                          Monday, May 4, 2026

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the Fair Pay Act of 2026. 
This bill would require that if men and women are doing comparable 
work, they must be paid comparable wages. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 
(EPA), the first of the great civil rights statutes of the 1960s, has 
grown creaky with age and needs updating to reflect the new workforce, 
in which women work as much as men.
  As the first woman to chair the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity 
Commission, where I enforced the EPA, I introduce this bill on behalf 
of the average female worker, who is often first steered to, and then 
locked into, jobs with wages that are deeply influenced by the gender 
of individuals who have traditionally held such jobs. The pay disparity 
most women face today stems mainly from the segregation of women and 
men in different jobs and women in female-dominated jobs being paid 
systematically less. For example, if a woman is an emergency services 
operator, a female-dominated profession, she should not be paid less 
than a fire dispatcher, a male-dominated profession, simply because 
each of these jobs has been dominated by one gender. We need more 
aggressive strategies to break through the societal barriers present 
throughout history, as well as employer-steering based on gender, which 
is as old as paid employment itself.
  What may be the best case for a stronger and updated EPA occurred in 
Congress in 2003, when female custodians in the House and Senate won an 
EPA case after showing that female employees were paid a dollar less 
per hour for doing the same or similar work as male employees. Had 
those women not been represented by their union, they would have had an 
almost impossible task in using the rules for bringing and sustaining 
an EPA class action lawsuit.
  This bill would not change the legal burden. Under this bill, as 
under the EPA, the burden would be on the plaintiff to prove 
discrimination. The plaintiff must show that the reason for the 
disparate treatment is gender discrimination, not legitimate market 
factors. Remedies to achieve comparable pay for men and women are not 
radical or unprecedented. State governments, in red and blue states 
alike, have shown that it is possible to eliminate the part of the pay 
gap that is due to job-steering. Many state governments have adjusted 
wages for female-dominated professions, raising pay for teachers, 
nurses, clerical workers, librarians and other female-dominated jobs 
that paid less than comparable male-dominated jobs. Minnesota, for 
example, implemented a pay equity plan when it found that traditionally 
female jobs paid 20 percent less than comparable traditionally male 
jobs. There may well be some portion of the gender wage gap that is 
traceable to market factors, but states have shown that you can tackle 
the gender discrimination-based wage gap without interfering in the 
market system. States generally have closed the wage gap over a period 
of four to five years at a one-time cost of no more than three to four 
percent of payroll.
  Unequal pay has been built into the way women have been treated since 
Adam and Eve. To dislodge such deep-seated and pervasive treatment, we 
must go to the source, the traditionally female occupations, where pay 
is linked with gender and always has been.
  I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

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