By Rachna Choudhry
4/14/15: Equal Pay Day is a date chosen each year to symbolize how far into the current year women need to work to earn the same amount of money men earned during the previous year, according to the National Women's History Museum. On this Equal Pay Day, April 14, 2015, POPVOX is spotlighting a variety of bills related to women's wages.
In 2013, the median woman working full-time all year earned 78 percent of what the median man working full-time all year earned. Although this gap generally narrowed between the 1970s and 1990s, it has largely stopped narrowing and has remained between 76 and 78 cents since 2001, according to the Council on Economic Advisors. “Studies have demonstrated that a significant portion of this gap cannot be explained by nondiscriminatory factors and that the promise of equal pay remains unfulfilled,” according to the National Equal Pay Enforcement Task Force.
Background: In 1963, Congress passed and President Kennedy signed into law the Equal Pay Act, making it illegal for employers to pay lower wages to women doing substantially the same work as their male counterparts. The next year, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted, making it illegal to discriminate, including in compensation, on the basis of sex, race, color, religion, and national origin.
In 2009, Congress passed, and President Obama signed into law, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which “restored the interpretation of the law that a pay discrimination claim accrues when a discriminatory pay decision or practice is adopted, whenever an employee is subjected to a discriminatory pay decision or practice, and each time a discriminatory pay decision or practice affects an employee, including each time the employee receives a discriminatory paycheck.”
President’s Response to Equal Pay
- The President’s FY 2016 budget requests an $8.6 million, or 2.4 percent, increase in the EEOC budget, the agency which enforces the Equal Pay Act. (In FY 2015, there were 969 charged filed related to the Equal Pay Act.)
- Last year, President Obama signed an Executive Order “prohibiting federal contractors from retaliating against employees who choose to discuss their compensation. The Executive Order does not compel workers to discuss pay, nor does it require employers to publish or otherwise disseminate pay data—but it does provide a critical tool to encourage pay transparency, so workers have a potential way of discovering violations of equal pay laws and are able to seek appropriate remedies.”
Congress Responds to Equal Pay
There are two bills pending before Congress that addresses the wage gap. The Paycheck Fairness Act, which has the support of President Obama and Democrats in the House and Senate, and the Workplace Advancement Act in the Senate, sponsored by Republican Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE). While the Paycheck Fairness Act has failed to garner Republican support, the introduction of the Workplace Advancement Act by Republican Senators indicates that there is some common ground on the issue of wage discrimination. According to the Workplace Advancement Act’s bill text, “despite this significant progress, surveys suggest there is a concern among American women that gender-based pay discrimination still exists.”
Paycheck Fairness Act ( HR 1619 and S 862 in the Senate)
Sponsors: Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) “Builds upon the landmark Equal Pay Act signed into law in 1963 by closing loopholes that have kept it from achieving its goal of equal pay. The bill would require employers to show pay disparity is truly related to job performance, not gender. It also prohibits employer retaliation for sharing salary information with coworkers. Under current law employers can sue and punish employees for sharing such information. In addition, it strengthens remedies for pay discrimination by increasing compensation women can seek, allowing them to seek both back pay and punitive damages for pay discrimination – conforming it to damages allowed in other discrimination cases. The bill empowers women in the workplace through a grant program to strengthen salary negotiation and other workplace skills, and requires the Department of Labor to enhance outreach and training efforts to eliminate pay disparities,” according to the bill sponsors. (Read bill text)
Workplace Advancement Act (S 875)
Sponsors: Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE) To amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to strengthen equal pay requirements. “To prevent retaliation against employees who inquire about, or discuss, their salaries, while also reinforcing current law banning gender discrimination under both the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,” according to the bill sponsor. (Read bill text)
From our Hill Sources: Last month, as part of the fiscal year 2016 budget, the Republican-led United States Senate passed an amendment offered by Senator Fischer on a bipartisan vote of 56 to 43. The amendment was supported by 53 Republicans and Senators Angus King (I-Maine), Joe Donnelly (I-IN) and Joe Manchin (D-WV).
— Please keep in mind that highlighting a bill doesn't imply a POPVOX endorsement in any way. Rather, we're simply trying to offer one more way to stay informed of a complex legislative system. —
