Hi John,

Today is Equal Pay Day—the day when women’s pay catches up to what men made last year alone.

The racist, sexist wage gap robs women of tens of thousands of dollars every year and hundreds of thousands of dollars over their lifetimes. For Black and Native American women, the wage gap costs them nearly a million dollars during a 40-year career, and for Latinas, it’s $1.1 million.

And of course, the COVID-19 pandemic and recession threaten to make the wage gap even wider. It’s past time for Congress to act. It’s time for Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act.

More than 4.2 million women were unemployed last month and more than 2.3 million women have completely left the labor force since last February—meaning that when those women reenter the workforce, they may face an even larger wage gap, on top of income lost during the pandemic. And those who still have jobs face wage gaps too. Nearly two in three front-line workers are women. While the pandemic has caused us to rightfully laud front-line workers as heroes, those celebrations ring hollow as long as women workers are paid less than their male peers.

That’s why we need the Paycheck Fairness Act now! Take action and email your representatives today.

The Paycheck Fairness Act strengthens protections for workers experiencing wage gaps due to sex-based pay discrimination by:

• Closing loopholes that have allowed employers to pay women less than men for the same work for decades,
• Prohibiting employers from relying on salary history to set pay when hiring,
• Ensuring women can receive the same remedies for sex-based pay discrimination as are available for race- or ethnicity-based discrimination,
• Promoting pay transparency by protecting workers from retaliation for discussing or disclosing their wages, and
• Requiring employers to report pay data to the EEOC.

Women and the families who depend on their income have been shortchanged by the gender wage gap for far too long, and they can’t afford to wait any longer. Tell your representatives: pass the Paycheck Fairness Act now!

Sincerely,