Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy On Equal Pay Day

May 11, 2000

[May 11 is Equal Pay Day, organized by the National Committee on Pay Equity to symbolically mark the point in the new year that a woman would have to work to supplement wages paid to a man in the previous calendar year. Because a woman makes only 73 percent of a man’s earnings, she has to work longer for her wages to "catch up" to his. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is cosponsoring two bills to foster pay equity and to help end wage discrimination in the workplace. In Jan., 1999, Leahy joined with Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and others to introduce the Paycheck Fairness Act (S. 74) to fortify enforcement of the Equal Pay Act and to reward companies with equal pay policies. Leahy has also joined with Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) in introducing the Fair Pay Act (S. 702) which would require that men and women who are in jobs with similar requirements and responsibilities receive similar wages. On September 16, 2000, Leahy will host his 5th annual Women’s Economic Opportunity conference at Vermont Technical College in Randolph. The conference is intended to help empower Vermont women with employment options and to encourage women to enter the workforce as business owners. Following is Leahy’s statement on Equal Pay Day:]

"Vermont women today have career and business opportunities that our grandmothers and great-grandmothers never even dreamed of. But for all of the gains that we have made in the past century, there still is a troubling constant: Women continue to earn lower wages than men for comparable work. Across the nation, women earn only 73 cents for every dollar earned by men. While Vermont women are way ahead of the pack, earning 81.9 cents for every man’s dollar, there is still a significant gap.

"Pay inequity affects all of us. Gender inequality in the workplace stifles women’s wages and hurts their families. According to a recent study, if women were paid the same as men, the poverty rates of women-led households in Vermont would be cut in half and the total family earnings in Vermont would be raised by $642 million a year. In our flourishing economy, there is no excuse for this wide pay gap. There are steps Congress should be taking to help. All it takes is the will to act."