Womenstake, NWLC's Blog

Contact Your Senators Today!

Tell your Senators to show their support for equal pay by co-sponsoring the Paycheck Fairness Act.

"Ladies, put your lipstick on, square your shoulders, and get ready to do battle. This calls for a revolution!"

That's what Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) said on the floor of the Senate during the successful fight to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. And now she needs our help for the next battle over equal pay — passing the Paycheck Fairness Act.

In the coming weeks, we expect a Senate vote on this vital legislation so we need you to contact your Senators today.

Please tell your Senators to show their support for equal pay by co-sponsoring the Paycheck Fairness Act.

The Paycheck Fairness Act would deter wage discrimination by updating the nearly 50-year-old Equal Pay Act and barring retaliation against workers who disclose their own wages to coworkers.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had my cholesterol screened.

That probably isn’t a good thing given that there is a history of heart disease in my family. But I kept coming up with excuses not to get tested – I already have a lot of doctor appointments - I don’t have a primary care provider - I eat healthy - I’m too young to worry about cholesterol.

Then the health care law was passed and, after a few months, all new health plans had to provide certain preventive services with no cost sharing.

Eliminating the small copay for my preventive visit may not have been much, but it meant one less hurdle. I also started thinking about why these services are required to be provided with no cost sharing. Preventive services are important.

Good news from New York on the minimum wage: the state Assembly passed a bill yesterday that would raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50 per hour next year and index it to keep pace with inflation. The bill would also raise the minimum cash wage for food service workers (a particularly large segment of tipped workers) from $5.00 to $5.86 per hour and index it for inflation.

This is particularly good news for women, who make up close to two thirds of minimum wage workers in New York. A mom with two kids working full time at $7.25 per hour makes just $14,500 per year, leaving her family thousands of dollars below the poverty line. Raising the minimum wage to $8.50 per hour would provide a meaningful boost of $2,500 each year. And raising the tipped minimum wage for food service workers – like restaurant servers, who are mostly women – to $5.86 per hour would increase their earnings by more than $1,700 per year. Moreover, because women are the majority of minimum wage workers in New York, increasing the minimum wage could help to close the gap between men’s and women’s typical earnings in the state. 

But the bill still needs to pass the Senate before it can get to Governor Andrew Cuomo (who has said he supports a minimum wage increase “in principle”). And unfortunately, a number of senators have expressed opposition to the minimum wage bill, trotting out false and tired arguments that an increase would “kill jobs.”