With Congress scheduled to vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act today, President Obama talked about why the fight for equal pay is more important than ever:
“Women still earn just 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. It’s worse for African American women and Latinas. Over the course of her career, a woman with a college degree is going to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars less than a man who is doing the same work.
“So at a time when we’re in a make-or-break moment for the middle class, Congress has to step up and do its job. If Congress passes the Paycheck Fairness Act, women are going to have access to more tools to claim equal pay for equal work. If they don’t, if Congress doesn’t act, then women are still going to have difficulty enforcing and pressing for this basic principle.
“And we’ve got to understand this is more than just about fairness. Women are the breadwinners [with] a lot of families, and if they’re making less than men do for the same work, families are going to have to get by for less money for childcare and tuition and rent, small businesses have fewer customers. Everybody suffers.”
Visit WhiteHouse.gov for more on the Paycheck Fairness Act.