[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 4]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 5937]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      COMMEMORATING EQUAL PAY DAY

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. SAM FARR

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, April 8, 2014

  Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, it is simply unfathomable that today is Equal 
Pay Day, the day when, more than three months into the year, women's 
wages finally catch up to what men were paid in the previous year. This 
is flat out unacceptable.
  Today is not a celebration or a happy occasion at all. It is a 
glaring reminder of the hard work that still needs to be done in order 
to achieve gender parity in pay.
  Women are half the population! How has this inequity been allowed to 
stand for so long? When President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into 
law in 1963, women on average made 59 cents for every dollar earned by 
men. It has been 51 years since the Equal Pay Act was signed into law, 
and yet women still earn on average only 77 cents for every dollar 
earned by men, amounting to a yearly gap of $11,607 between full-time 
working men and women. We've made some progress--but not nearly enough.
  Equal pay is not simply a women's issue--it is a family issue. 
Families increasingly rely on women's wages to make ends meet, and with 
less take-home pay women have less money for the everyday needs of 
their families.
  According to the National Partnership for Women and Families, in 
California, women in are paid 84 cents for every dollar paid to men, 
amounting to an annual wage gap of $8,183 between men and women who 
work full time in the state. In addition, Californian women who are 
employed full time lose a combined total of approximately 
$37,658,902,470 every year due to the wage gap.
  The sad reality is that the pay gap is not simply an education issue. 
Nationally, women with master's degrees who work full time are paid 
just 70 cents for every dollar paid to men with master's degrees. 
Further, women with doctoral degrees are paid less than men with 
master's degrees, and women with master's degrees are paid less than 
men with bachelor's degrees.
  Mr. Speaker, that is why the Paycheck Fairness Act is so critical. It 
will close loopholes and strengthen the Equal Pay Act, which hasn't 
been updated in 51 years. The bill has 207 cosponsors. It is simply 
shocking that out of 207 cosponsors, not one--let me repeat that--not 
one is a Republican. This is not an issue that only affects Democrats. 
It affects all hard-working American women--regardless of their 
political party. Does the Majority simply not care about this problem, 
or is it yet another continuation of the War on Women?

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