Equal Pay Day - highlighting the need for equal pay for women workers across America - was on April 22nd.  This marks time of year in which the wages paid to American women "catch up" to the wages paid to men from the previous year.  

 

Equal pay is not simply a women's issue, but a family issue.  The wage gap hurts everyone - husbands, wives, children, and parents - because it lowers family incomes that pay for essentials:  groceries, doctors' visits, child care.  When women earn more, an entire family benefits.  41 percent of women are their families' sole source of income. 

 

On April 23, 2008 members of the Senate opposed the Fair Pay Act - a bill that would help guarantee women equal pay for equal work. The bill would have restored critical anti-discrimination rules that the Supreme Court struck down in a recent decision, and failed by just three votes.