Skip Navigation

Fighting For Equal Pay For Equal Work

Democrats in Congress and President Obama have worked to ensure equal pay for equal work. We believe that equal pay for equal work is about basic fairness: Paying women less than men for doing the same work is not just immoral, it’s bad economics. If women and their families are not paid the wages they are owed, they have less purchasing power and are less able to make ends meet.

In 2007, when the Supreme Court shut the doors of justice on Lilly Ledbetter, Democrats moved quickly to ensure that women could seek justice for the pay discrimination they all too often experience. After approved by the House, Senate Republicans filibustered the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. It took a new Congress and President Obama to make this bill the law of the land.

The Ledbetter bill only addressed one hurdle for women who are seeking justice for illegal unequal pay. Working women still only get paid 77 cents on the dollar when compared to men. Closing this wage gap is a moral and economic imperative for our nation and all families trying to make ends meet.

That’s why Democrats in Congress and President Obama have been pushing to strengthen the Equal Pay Act in order to close loopholes in the law that allow some employers to pay a woman less for just being a woman. Unfortunately, this bill, The Paycheck Fairness Act, has been blocked by Senate and House Republicans over the last couple of years.

The fight for Equal Pay for Equal Work by the numbers:

24 – The number of days after the Supreme Court gutted pay discrimination protections that then-Chairman George Miller introduced the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

247 – The number of House Democrats who voted for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009

3 – The number of House Republicans who voted for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009

9 – The number of days after his inauguration that President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law

0 – The number of hearings held on pay equity issues in the U.S. House in the current Congress

2 – The number of times the Paycheck Fairness Act has been filibustered in the U.S. Senate

52 – The number of Senate Democrats who voted to break the most recent filibuster of Paycheck Fairness

0 – The number of Senate Republicans voting to break a filibuster of the Paycheck Fairness Act
 

 

 

Share |