[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 4853-4854]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        SUPPORT OF EQUAL PAY DAY

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, April 9, 2013

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, today is Equal Pay Day, the day in 
April recognized annually to signify the point into a year that a woman 
must work to earn what a man made the previous year.
  This means that on average, a woman needed to work from January 1, 
2012 until April 9, 2013 to earn the same salary that a comparable man 
earned in 2012 alone.
  More than 50 years after Congress made it illegal for employers to 
discriminate on the basis of sex, it is shameful that hard working 
American women are paid so much less than their male counterparts for 
the same work.
  Today, women make up nearly half the workforce, but their paychecks 
still lag far behind men's. Today the typical American woman who works 
full time, year round is paid only 77 cents for every dollar paid to 
her male counterpart.
  The wage gap occurs at all education levels, after work experience is 
taken into account, and it gets worse as women's careers progress.
  Women are paid less than men in nearly every occupation. One study 
examining wage gaps within occupations found that out of 265 major 
occupations, men's median salary exceeded women's in all but a few 
lower paid service sector jobs.
  The six jobs with the largest gender gap in pay and at least 10,000 
men and 10,000 women were in the Wall Street-heavy financial sector: 
insurance agents, managers, clerks, securities sales agents, personal 
advisers, and other specialists.
  Advanced-degree professions proved no better predictors of equality. 
Female doctors made 63 cents for every $1 earned by male physicians and 
surgeons. Female chief executives earned 74 cents for every $1 made by 
male counterparts.
  Women only constitute 3.7 percent of Fortune 500 chief executives and 
18.3 percent of corporate-board directors.
  The wage gap impacts women as soon as they enter the labor force, 
expands over time, and leaves older women with a gap in retirement 
income.
  The wage gap is smaller for younger women than older women, but it 
begins right when women enter the labor force. The typical 15-24 year 
old woman working full time, year round, earns 92.2 percent of what her 
male counterpart is paid.
  Among older women, the gap is even larger. The typical 45-64 year old 
woman working full time, year round is paid just 72.8 percent of what 
her male counterpart is paid. For women still working at age 65 and 
older the figure is 72.1 percent.
  A typical woman who worked full time, year round would lose $443,360 
over the course of a 40-year working life due to the wage gap. This 
woman would have to work almost twelve years longer to make up this 
gap. A typical woman working full time, year round who starts, but who 
does not finish high school would lose $372,400 over a 40-year period, 
an enormous amount of money for women who are typically paid $21,113 a 
year. This woman would have to work over seventeen years longer to make 
up this gap.
  As a result of lower lifetime earnings and different work patterns, 
the average Social Security benefit for women 65 and older was about 
$12,700 per year, compared to $16,700 for men of the same age in 2011.
  In 2010, women 50 and older received only 56 cents for every dollar 
received by men in income from pensions and annuities. One study found 
that the typical woman worker near retirement with a defined 
contribution plan or individual retirement account had accumulated 
$34,000 in savings, while her male counterpart held $70,00--more than 
twice as much. Reasons for the Wage Gap


                        REASONS FOR THE WAGE GAP

  Several important factors contribute to the wage gap. Among them are 
discrimination, racial disparities, occupational segregation, which 
involve structural factors which operate to concentrate women in low-
wage jobs and limit their access to higher paying jobs in 
nontraditional occupations. Also playing a part is the devaluation of 
women's work and women's greater responsibility for care giving.
  A study by labor economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn found 
that even controlling for the combined effects of occupation, industry, 
work experience, union status, race and educational attainment, 41% of 
the wage gap remains unexplained. This indicates that discrimination 
plays a sizable role in the gender wage gap.
  Some of this discrimination seems to be directed against mothers. A 
study by sociologists Shelley Correll, Stephan Benard, and Ian Paik 
found that, when comparing equally qualified women job candidates, 
women who were mothers were recommended for significantly lower 
starting salaries, perceived as less competent, and less likely to be 
recommended for hire than non-mothers.
  The effects for fathers in the study were the opposite: fathers were 
actually recommended for significantly higher pay and were perceived as 
more committed to their jobs than non-fathers.
  But it is not only mothers who are discriminated against in the 
workplace. Study after study shows that when companies are reviewing 
resumes, they are more likely to hire men, and more likely to offer 
those men a higher salary. These studies are done by submitting 
identical resumes, but changing the name of the applicant. This means 
that even with the exact same resume and qualifications, Roberta is 
offered a lower salary than Robert. Joanna is offered a lower salary 
than Joe. Women are offered a lower salary than men just because they 
are women.


            The Wage Gap is even Greater for Women of Color

  Women of color experience a far greater wage gap than their white, 
non-Hispanic counterparts.
  The typical African-American woman who works full time, year round 
makes only 64 cents, and the typical Hispanic woman who works full 
time, year round only 55 cents, for every dollar paid to their white, 
non-Hispanic male counterparts. For the typical white, non-Hispanic 
woman, this figure is 77 cents.
  The wage gap for African-American and Hispanic women working full 
time, year round persists when the effect of race is examined alone. 
The typical African-American woman working full-time year round is paid 
roughly 80 cents for every dollar paid to her white, non-Hispanic 
female counterpart. The gap is larger for the typical Hispanic woman 
working full time, year round, who is paid just 70 cents for every 
dollar paid to her white, non-Hispanic female counterpart.
  The wage gap for African-American and Hispanic women working full 
time, year round also persists when the effect of sex is considered 
alone. The typical African-American

[[Page 4854]]

woman working full-time year round is paid roughly 85 cents for every 
dollar paid to her African-American male counterpart. The typical 
Hispanic woman working full time, year round is paid 91 cents for every 
dollar paid to her Hispanic male counterpart.
  In my home state of Texas, the statistics are even worse for women of 
color. African American women in Texas make 59.6 cents compared to 
white non-Hispanic men, and Hispanic women make 45.2 cents for every 
dollar earned by a white, non-Hispanic man.


 Occupational Segregation Leads to Unequal Pay Persistent Occupational 
                              Segregation

  Almost two-thirds of workers earning the lowest wages--those who make 
the federal minimum wage or less--are women. The federal minimum wage 
is just $7.25 per hour. The federal minimum cash wage for tipped 
employees is $2.13 per hour, less than one-third of the current federal 
minimum wage and unchanged in more than 20 years. Women make up almost 
two-thirds (65 percent) of workers in tipped occupations.
  Even in occupations that pay slightly above the federal minimum wage, 
women predominate. Women are the majority of workers in each of the ten 
largest occupations that typically pay less than $10.10 per hour, and 
two-thirds or more of the workers in seven of these occupations.
  Studies have shown that occupational segregation leads to lower wages 
for women. In fact, wages in occupations that are made up predominantly 
of women--``pink collar'' occupations such as child care workers, 
family caregivers or servers pay low wages--precisely because women are 
the majority of workers in the occupation. One study that used the 
share of women in an occupation to predict wages in that job a decade 
later found that ``women's occupations''--those that were two-thirds or 
more female--had wages that were 6 percent to 10 percent lower a decade 
later than ``mixed occupations.''


                Unequal Pay Hurts Families and Children

  Whenever a woman receives unequal pay for equal work, their families 
suffer.
  Lower earnings have a serious impact on the economic security of the 
over 7.5 million families headed by working single mothers.
  Working single mothers with children struggle to make ends meet. In 
2011, over a quarter, almost 2.2 million, of all such families were 
poor. Almost an additional 2.5 million working single mother families 
were on the edge of poverty, falling between 100 and 200 percent of the 
Federal Poverty Level, meaning that 62% of working single mother 
families subsisted under 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. In 
2011, the Federal Poverty Level for a single mother with two children 
was just $18,123.
  Most two-parent families depend on women's wages, and so also suffer 
when women receive unfair pay.
  Nearly 1.6 million married couples with children relied exclusively 
on women's earnings at some point in 2011, representing 6.6 percent of 
all married couples with children.
  In 2011, more than 13.9 million married couples with children relied 
on both parents' earnings, representing 58.7 percent of all married 
couples with children.
  Fair pay impacts married women with no children who are more likely 
to be solely supporting their family than married women with children.
  Nearly 4.1 million married couples with no children relied 
exclusively on women's earnings at some point in 2011, representing 
11.5 percent of all married couples with no children.
  In 2011, almost 13.9 million married couples with no children relied 
on both partners' earnings, representing 39.4 percent of all married 
couples with no children.


                        Lilly Ledbetter's Story

  While looking at these shocking statistics, I wanted to remind you 
all of the story of a woman who received unequal pay for equal work: 
Lilly Ledbetter. She has become a household name for her courage to 
fight for an equal paycheck. Thanks to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act 
of 2009 women in Ms. Ledbetter's situation can now seek remedies in 
federal court more easily. These statistics show that women all around 
the country experience the kind of discrimination that Lilly Ledbetter 
faced.
  Lilly Ledbetter was born in a house with no running water or 
electricity in the small town of Possum Trot, Alabama.
  She worked hard, and became a supervisor at Goodyear Tire and 
Rubber's plant in Gadsden, Alabama, from 1979 until her retirement in 
1998.
  For most of those years, she worked as an area manager, a position 
largely occupied by men. Initially, Ledbetter's salary was in line with 
the salaries of men performing substantially similar work. Over time, 
however, her pay slipped in comparison to the pay of male area managers 
with equal or less seniority.
  By the end of 1997, Ledbetter was the only woman working as an area 
manager and the pay discrepancy between Ledbetter and her 15 male 
counterparts was stark: Ledbetter was paid $3,727 per month; the lowest 
paid male area manager received $4,286 per month, the highest paid, 
$5,236.
  In short, despite her outstanding performance, every month Lilly 
Ledbetter took home a smaller paycheck than men doing the same job. She 
may have never found out about this discrimination had a co-worker not 
slipped her an anonymous note telling her she was being paid hundreds 
of dollars less per month.
  At first, the Supreme Court said that Lilly Ledbetter couldn't even 
sue her employer since the first time they began paying her unequally 
was 19 years ago, leaving Lilly Ledbetter with no remedy for the 19 
years of unequal, discriminatory paychecks she received. Fortunately, 
Congress stepped up and passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which 
allows women to bring a lawsuit within a reasonable amount of time 
uncovering the discrimination.
  Our goal here in Congress needs to be to eliminate unequal pay at its 
root. Every day, women like Lilly Ledbetter are less able to pay their 
bills, save for retirement, and enjoy the fruits of their labor because 
they are paid less than their male counterparts.


                               Conclusion

  We need to act to close this wage gap. More than 50 years after 
Congress made it illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of 
sex, it is shameful that hard working American women are paid 77 cents 
for every dollar earned by a man. 77 cents for working the same job, 
the same number of hours.
  Equal Pay Day reminds us how much further we need to go to achieve 
equality in the workplace. We need to come together to work to put an 
end to unequal pay for equal work.

                          ____________________