[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 4818]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             EQUAL PAY DAY

  (Ms. DeLAURO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. DeLAURO. It has now been 50 years since Congress passed the Equal 
Pay Act to confront the ``serious and endemic'' problem of unequal 
wages in America. At the time, when women were a third of the Nation's 
workforce, President John F. Kennedy said that this would help to end 
``the unconscionable practice of paying female employees less wages 
than male employees for the same job.''
  Today, women are now half of the Nation's workforce, but they are 
still only being paid 77 cents on the dollar as compared to men. And 
that is why today we're once again forced to recognize Equal Pay Day, 
the day in 2013 when a woman's earnings for 2012 catch up to what a man 
made last year.
  Unequal pay affects families all across our country. They're trying 
to pay their bills, trying to achieve the American Dream, and are 
getting less take-home pay than they deserve for their hard work. More 
steps are clearly needed to ensure that women are paid what they 
deserve.
  We need to pass legislation that will end pay secrecy and give women 
the tools to ensure that they are being compensated fairly. We need to 
pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. Men, women, same job, same pay.
  Fifty years after this Congress first acted on the issue, it is time 
to end unequal pay. Make the dubious milestone of Equal Pay Day a thing 
of the past.

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