Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D) of Florida (left) and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) of Michigan argued Tuesday at a Monitor breakfast in Denver in favor of legislation they say will help women achieve equal pay for equal work. (Mary Knox Merrill/Staff)
Women lawmakers, at convention, hammer pay equity issue
Citing hardship to women during the economic slump, they argue for legislation to strengthen protections against wage bias.
By Gail Russell Chadddock | Staff writer/ August 26, 2008 edition
Denver – As Democrats take up the economy on Day 2 of their national convention, key women legislators are gearing up to pass landmark legislation to crack down on wage discrimination.
“While everyone is feeling a faltering economy, women feel it with greater force and poignancy in every aspect of life,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D) of Connecticut at a Monitor-sponsored breakfast for reporters in Denver on Tuesday. “It’s why almost 60 percent of women say they are concerned about achieving their economic and financial goals over the next five years – 15 [percentage] points higher than for men.”
Recent economic studies signal stark differences in economic prospects for men and women. Here are some examples:
•Incomes for female heads of household are down 3 percent between 2000 and 2006.
•Half of women are in jobs without retirement plans.
•Risk of poverty increases with age for women. Retired women are more likely to be poor than elderly men.
•Women are one-third more likely than men to hold subprime mortgages.
•A third of women are in poverty, and women are losing jobs at a faster rate than men.
Just before breaking for August recess, the US House of Representatives passed the Paycheck Fairness Act, which aims to provide more effective remedies to victims of wage discrimination on the basis of gender. Now the bill moves to the Senate, where Republicans are threatening to block it, setting up a partisan firefight just before a national election.
Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who battled each other for the Democratic presidential nomination, back the legislation. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, does not.
“This is a pattern for John McCain of voting against the economic prospects of women,” says Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) of Michigan. Tuesday night Democratic women senators will speak at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) about their Checklist for Change, at the top of which is equal pay for equal work.
“John McCain says we deserve less pay because we are less educated and less trained, and that’s ridiculous,” added Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D) of Florida.
Not only do women earn less, they often pay more, she adds. “Hair cuts are more. Tailoring is more. Dry-cleaning is more. There is a female tax. There are many instances in which women are paying more for the same services, so the inequality is really across the board,” she said.
Also speaking Tuesday night is Lilly Ledbetter, whose allegations of wage bias against Goodyear Tire led to a US Supreme Court decision in 2007 that’s been decried by antidiscrimination activists. “I am a living example of the effect of not being paid fairly and treated fairly on a job that you’re doing the same as a male,” she said at the Monitor breakfast.
Comments
2. THE curiousblack | 08.26.08
i watched the speeches and listened to the comments, and read others here. it looks like many people are missing the point of several of the speeches. the republican party and its surrogates have put forth the opinion that african americans are not truly americans and therefore should not be really considered for president. it reminded me of my youth, hearing white children refer to my grandfather as a boy.
it needs to be remembered that the bigotry and ignorance that has clouded the vision of this nation will continue to blind us and hold us back as a nation.
in the eyes of some americans, Sen. obama will always be a boy who will never have enough experience. they may never be convinced that they are wrong, but their bigotry must always be exposed for what it is. a fear of the future and its inevitablilty.
3. NinaK | 08.26.08
This IS the very reason why women should NOT support John McCain. It is obvious that any bill that helps women, McCain is AGAINST!! Those dead-end Hilliary supporters who insist they will vote for John McCain are fanatical about Hilliary and are being blinded by their irrational reasoning. Some of the women I have seen on TV are so blinded, they don’t even make sense in what they say. I am not asking these women to deal with Hilliary’s loss by “getting over it”; I am asking these women to think rationally. They think they are hurting the Democrat Party, that may or may not be true, what is true is that McCain’s and Hilliary’s policies are at different ends of the spectrum while Hilliary’s and Obamas policies are virtually the same. If these women continue with their “revenge” (and that is what it actually is), it is THEMSELVES that they are ultimately damaging. I really do not care that they want to commit suicide, what I do care about is that they will have taken the entire Unites States with them IF McCain, perchance, gets elected. Fanatisism in any form is dangerous and can be deadly! These women also have convinced themselves that Hilliary was “cheated out of the nominations” when, in fact, this is NOT true. Senator Obama won 12 contests and he got fairly far ahead of Hilliary. Hilliary was not able to catch up with him in delegates. Those are the facts. The media mentioned the word, “sexist”, and Clinton supporters immediately jumped on that bandwagon. Wasn’t Hilliary “sexist” when she cried, when she complained about her fellow candidates when they diagreed with her and she said they were “piling on her” and “the boys club was picking on her”. Isn’t it Clinton who played the gender card throughout her campaign?….isn’t this being “sexist”?
4. jim | 08.27.08
Of course, women are paid less than men. It’s always been that way and will probably continue for at least another fifty years. As a compensation professional, I’ve known simple fact that for over four decades of pay system research and consulting. The often-quoted 60% has barely budged for decades but it is in fact misleading. The real differential, when you adjust for all factors, including time in the workforce, is “only” about 15%. That’s still unjust, but there has never been any effective affirmative action program for women, despite the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The historical pay differentials continue via systemic discrimination. I’ve spoken and published about it a lot over the decades, but few people care.
5. corodon | 08.31.08
Pay equity is not equal pay. It would wreak havoc in the work place by dislocating supply and demand in the jobs market; launch thousands of bureaucratic careers (someone has to establish criteria and measure the “equalness” of unrelated jobs); and, of course, enrich lawyers.
Equal pay for equal work is already the law of the land, and needs monitoring. But “Pay Equity” is a horse of a different color entirely.
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1. raoul | 08.26.08
Women have earned the right to pay equity and if the Democrats don’t deliver in the next four years then America needs a third party to carry and win the issues that really matter.
Hilary can deliver and she will in 2012.