Hoyer: Eliminate Gender Pay Gap

Each year, the United States marks the day it takes a woman, on average, to earn the same amount as a man who has been doing the same work if both had started on the first day of January. Congressman Steny H. Hoyer released a statement to acknowledge Equal Pay Day, which fell on March 24 this year.

“I join in observing Equal Pay Day, when we mark the extra weeks that women must work to earn the same as men in comparable jobs in the previous year. It is unacceptable that women still earn only 82 cents, on average, for every dollar earned by a man – and the numbers for women of color are even worse,” Rep. Hoyer (D-MD) said.

While congressional Democrats and the Obama-Biden administration enacted the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009 to give women legal recourse for unequal pay, there is still work to be done, he said.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act overturned the Supreme Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Inc.,  which severely restricted the time period for filing complaints of employment discrimination concerning compensation.

Last Congress, House Democrats passed the Paycheck Fairness Act, which the Senate refused to consider.

“The House will pass that bill again, and I hope that the Senate will act this time so that this bill can become law,” Rep. Hoyer said.

“There has never been a more critical time to act to reduce and eliminate the gender pay gap. Before the pandemic brought an unprecedented economic crisis, more and more women were becoming their households’ primary breadwinners each year,” he said. “The pandemic has forced millions of women out of the workforce, exacerbating the pay gap and making it imperative that Congress help them get back to work and earn the equal pay they deserve. As we work to build back better from COVID-19, we cannot simply go back to the way things were: millions of American women earning less than men for the same work cannot continue to be our reality. Instead, we must address this and other longstanding economic inequalities so that everybody has an equal shot at making it in America.”