"Paycheck Fairness Act" in process in House of Representatives

Story here. Excerpt:

'WASHINGTON - July 24 - The American Civil Liberties Union today urged the House Education and Labor Committee to pass H.R. 1338, the Paycheck Fairness Act, with no weakening amendments. This important legislation would update the Equal Pay Act, one of the primary laws addressing pay discrimination.

Court decisions and loopholes have chipped away at the Equal Pay Act over the years, making it less effective in combating pay discrimination. The Paycheck Fairness Act, with 228 cosponsors to date, would strengthen and improve protections against workplace discrimination.'

If you want to read it, track it, learn about committee membership (including contact info), etc., go here.

Some commentary by Carrie Lukas challenging the underlying assumptions is here. Excerpt:

'The committee’s press release, like essentially every public statement supporting expanded “equal pay” laws, cites the statistic that women earn just 77 percent of men’s earnings. This “wage gap” is considered proof that the work world’s deck is still stacked against women and government needs to do more to make sure that everyone plays fair.

Yet a statistic that simply compares the wages of the median full-time working man and the full-time working woman tells us nothing about the existence (or lack thereof) of systematic wage discrimination. Many factors contribute to how much one earns, from occupation and area of specialty to education and years of experience. Not surprisingly, once those factors are taken into account, the wage gap shrinks.'