Results tagged “wages” from EdLabor Journal

In December 2006, Rep. George Miller, the new Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, announced that the Committee would be dedicated to the mission of strengthening America’s middle class. And over the past two years, the Committee has delivered on its promise. America's students, workers, and families need help more than ever during the current financial crisis, and the Committee will continue its work to strengthen the middle class. Below is an overview of the Committee’s legislative milestones in the 110th Congress.

The Committee passed the Paycheck Fairness Act today to help end the discriminatory practice of paying men and women unequally for performing the same job, by a 26 to 17 vote.  The bill, which was introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, will strengthen the Equal Pay Act and close the loopholes that have allowed employers to avoid responsibility for discriminatory pay.  Although the wage gap between men and women has narrowed since the passage of the landmark Equal Pay Act in 1963, gender-based wage discrimination remains a significant problem for women in the U.S. workforce. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, women only make 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. The Institute of Women’s Policy Research concluded that this wage disparity will cost a woman anywhere from $400,000 to $2 million over her lifetime in lost wages.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), testified at a hearing today that findings from two separate investigations indicate that the U.S. Department of Labor is failing to effectively enforce the nation’s wage and hour laws.  The two investigations found that the Wage and Hour Division of the Labor Department -– the agency responsible for investigating complaints of wage, hour, and child labor violations -– is failing to fully investigate and properly address violations of the law.  The GAO calculated that actions initiated by the Department on wage and hour violations have dropped from approximately 47,000 in 1997 to fewer than 30,000 in 2007.  Also, the use of fines that punish repeat or egregious offenders declined by nearly 50 percent from 2001 to 2007.