Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress finds the following: Wage rate differentials exist between equivalent jobs segregated by sex, race, and national origin in Government employment and in industries engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce. The existence of such wage rate differentials— depresses wages and living standards for employees necessary for their health and efficiency; prevents the maximum utilization of the available labor resources; tends to cause labor disputes, thereby burdening, affecting, and obstructing commerce; burdens commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce; and constitutes an unfair method of competition.
Discrimination in hiring and promotion has played a role in maintaining a segregated work force. Many women and people of color work in occupations dominated by individuals of their same sex, race, and national origin. In 2009, a woman in the United States working in a full-time, year-round job earned 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man working in a full-time, year-round job. A 2007 study found that—even when accounting for key factors generally known to influence earnings such as race, educational attainment, and experience—nearly half (49.3 percent) of the pay gap can be explained by differences in the industries and occupations that men and women work in, and 41 percent of the pay gap cannot be accounted for but may be partially explained by discrimination in the workplace.
Section 6(d) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 prohibits discrimination in compensation for equal work on the basis of sex. Artificial barriers to the elimination of discrimination in compensation based upon sex, race, and national origin continue to exist more than 4 decades after the passage of section 6(d) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the Equal Pay Act of 1963, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ( 42 U.S.C. 2000a et seq. ). Elimination of such barriers would have positive effects, including— providing a solution to problems in the economy created by discrimination through wage rate differentials; substantially reducing the number of working women and people of color earning low wages, thereby reducing the dependence on public assistance; and promoting stable families by enabling working family members to earn a fair rate of pay.
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