RELEASE: On Equal Pay Day, Gottheimer Introduces Paycheck Fairness Act

Washington, D.C. — Today, Equal Pay Day, Congressman Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5) helped introduce the Paycheck Fairness Act, common-sense legislation to ensure women receive equal pay for equal work. In New Jersey’s Fifth Congressional District, women who work full-time and year-round earn on average only 72 cents for every dollar earned by men, even worse than the state’s average of 82 cents. This gap persists across industries and age groups and is even worse for women of color.

The bill Gottheimer helped introduce today, the Paycheck Fairness Act, aims to close this gap by, among other provisions, protecting workers who discuss their pay from retaliation, streamlining enforcement of existing non-discrimination law, and ensuring that employers who do pay men more than women can demonstrate that the disparity is job-related and not gender-based.

“Women deserve equal pay for equal work. Period,” said Congressman Josh Gottheimer. “I’m proud to introduce the Paycheck Fairness Act to close the persistent gap between men and women’s earnings. It’s absurd that in this day and age women only earn 72 cents on the dollar earned by men.”

Equal Pay Day marks the day that, after more than three additional months of work, women’s average wages catch up to what their male counterparts earned the year before.