On Equal Pay Day, Congresswoman Alma Adams Calls For Passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act

Press Release

On Equal Pay Day, Congresswoman Alma S. Adams (NC-12), a member of the Joint Economic Committee, called for passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act, legislation she cosponsored that would help close the gaps in pay for women and men working the same jobs.

"It takes the average woman an additional 94 days--three additional months--to earn what her male peers earned in 2016. That is unacceptable," said Congresswoman Adams. "From the North Carolina House to the U.S. House, I have been fighting to close gender and wage gaps. Fifty-four years have passed since we signed the Equal Pay Act into law, but today in North Carolina, women still only make 82 cents for every dollar a man makes -- and nationally, that statistic is even worse. When women are shortchanged our children, families and economy are shortchanged. Today, I am calling on my colleagues to join me in working to close gender and wage gaps by passing the Paycheck Fairness Act."

Equal Pay Day symbolizes when, more than three months into the year, women's wages finally catch up to what men were paid in the previous year. The Paycheck Fairness Act strengthens and closes loopholes in the Equal Pay Act of 1963. Among its many provisions, the Paycheck Fairness Act requires employers to show that pay disparity is truly related to job performance, not gender; strengthens remedies for women experiencing pay discrimination; prohibits employer retaliation for sharing salary information with coworkers; and empowers women in the workplace through a grant program to strengthen salary negotiation and other workplace skills.

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