WHAT: AAUW Director of Research Catherine Hill will testify at the Education & Labor Committee’s Equal Pay Hearing on April 24. April 24 is Equal Pay Day, which is a symbolic reference to the number of days into a new year that women have to work before earning what men earned by December 31.
WHEN: April 24, 2007 | 9:30 a.m. EST
WHERE: 2175 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C.
WHO: The American Association of University Women will join U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), sponsor of the Paycheck Fairness Act at the hearing. DeLauro's legislation would close some key loopholes in existing law and reinstate the Equal Pay Initiative — which was eliminated by the Bush Administration in 2002 — in order to level the playing field between men and women.
“The persistence of the pay gap among young, college-educated, full-time workers suggests that educational achievement alone will not close the pay gap,” Hill said. “We need to make workplaces more family-friendly, reduce sex segregation in education and in the workplace, and combat discrimination that continues to hold women back in the workplace.”
WHY: The AAUW Educational Foundation released new research on the pay gap on April 23, 2007. This striking research, Behind the Pay Gap, shows that a wage gap still exists between men and women, as early as one year after college graduation, and that the pay gap grows over time.
AAUW believes that equal pay for equal work is a simple matter of justice for women. Wage discrimination impacts the economic security of families today and directly affects retirement security as women look down the road.
For more information or to schedule an interview with AAUW Director of Research Catherine Hill, please contact Rebecca Leaf, senior media relations associate at 202/785-7738 or leafr@aauw.org; or Ashley Carr, director of communications at 202/785-7745 or carra@aauw.org.
For more information about AAUW’s new research report, Behind the Pay Gap, visit the AAUW Newsroom.
