Equal Pay Day

Floor Speech

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Mr. BERA of California. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to celebrate Equal Pay Day as we mark the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act.

In the last 50 years, women have gone into space and off to war. They've led Fortune 500 companies and served on the Supreme Court. They've been elected Speaker of the House and run for President; yet women still earn only 77 cents for every dollar a man earns.

In the Sacramento area, women lose approximately $2.2 billion each year because of this pay gap. Now, that's unacceptable and as a father it's personal. I want my daughter to grow up in a country where her gender is not a barrier to her success.

And the wage gap doesn't just hurt women; it hurts families, businesses, and communities. Women are now nearly half of our workforce, and oftentimes it's up to women to put food on the table and provide for their families. That's why I'm a proud cosponsor of the Paycheck Fairness Act, one of the very first bills I chose to cosponsor.

It's time for us to finish what President Kennedy started 50 years ago and what women have been working to achieve for more than a century and make equal pay a reality for millions of Americans.

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