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Moms to U.S. Senate: “Don’t shortchange moms and daughters! Families need equal pay for equal work!”

Moms and their kids are in Washington, D.C. TODAY delivering personal messages to Congress from MomsRising members across the country about the need for stronger fair pay policies along with change purses that say: Don’t shortchange moms and daughters! Families need equal pay for equal work!

Let’s give these MomsRising volunteers some online back up! Send a message to urge your Senators to be on the lookout for the volunteers on the Hill today and to do everything they can to strengthen fair pay laws and finally put an end to the wage gap.

Dear Senator,
As your constituent and a member of MomsRising, I urge you to be on the lookout today for MomsRising volunteers delivering personal stories from MomsRising members across the country about the need for stronger fair pay policies along with change purses and a message: Don’t shortchange moms and daughters! Families need equal pay for equal work!

These stories bring to life the statistics that show wage and hiring discrimination against women and mothers is still rampant in our nation.  In fact, data  released last year by the U.S. Census found that women who worked full-time, year-round on average still made 23 cents less for every dollar earned by their male counterparts.  And, the wage gap for women of color in 2009 was even more staggering than for women overall. When Black and Hispanic women work full-time, year-round, they only make 62 and 53 cents, respectively, for every dollar their white, non-Hispanic male counterparts earn. [1] Further, a recent study found that with equal resumes and job experiences, mothers were offered $11,000 lower starting salaries than non-moms. (Fathers, on the other hand, were offered $6,000 more in starting salaries than non-fathers). [2] There is real discrimination against moms going on here.

Since over 80% of women in our nation have children by the time they're 44 years old, this means the majority of women in our nation are touched by this type of wage discrimination at some point in their lives.

You have work to do.  Even though President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, the pay gap has been narrowing by less than half a percent a year. If the wage gap continues to narrow at the same rate as it has done since 1960, it will take another 45 years, or until 2056, for women and men to reach pay equity.  [3]

Today, April 12, is Equal Pay Day. This day symbolizes how far into 2011 women must work to earn what men earned in 2010.   On this day I hope that you will read the messages and stories of frustration and hope that MomsRising members have that someday, very soon, our daughters won’t be facing the same struggles that we face.
 
Sincerely,

[1] United States Census: Income, Poverty and Health Insurance in the United States: 2009 and National Women’s Law Center blog post, “State Wage Gap Data Show Little or No Improvement from 2008,” September 28 2010
[2] Franklin Crawford, <i>“Motherhood and the math factor: Sociologist Shelley Correll exposes biases that affect women in business and academia,”</i> Cornell University, Chronicle Online, Feb 6, 2007
[3] IWPR Report: <i>“Women’s Median Earnings as a Percent of Men’s Median Earnings, 1960-2009 (Full-Time, Year-Round Workers) with Projection for Pay Equity in 2056,”</i> Jeff Hayes, Ph.D. (March 2011)

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Moms to U.S. Senate: “Don’t shortchange moms and daughters! Families need equal pay for equal work!”