Senator Kevin Parker on the 50th Anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s Signing of the Equal Pay Act into Law

Senator Kevin Parker on the 50th Anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s Signing of the Equal Pay Act into Law

(Brooklyn, NY) “I want to say today as clearly as possible, it is appalling that 50 years after President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law, we are still discussing women not receiving equal pay for equal work in New York.

I am committed to working to make sure that New York does not continue failing to protect women’s rights and their equality.

In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about the 99%, I think that today, and going forward, we should also be talking about the 51%.

Women make on average on 77 cents for every dollar a man earns – an increase of only 17 cents in the past 50 years.

The statistics are far worse for African-American women who only are paid 64 cents on every dollar, and for Latinas who only make 55 cents for every dollar earned by white men.

Women must earn a living equal to their efforts. That is the fair thing to do; it is the honorable thing to do; it is the right thing to do.

After all, to quote a popular book – women hold up half the sky. 

They should not receive half the pay, like Latinas do.

Women should get equal pay for equal work.

The era of gender-based pay disparity must end.”

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About Senator Kevin Parker 

Senator Kevin S. Parker is intimately familiar with the needs of his ethnically diverse Brooklyn community that consists of 318,000 constituents in Flatbush, East Flatbush, Midwood, Ditmas Park, Kensington, Windsor Terrace, and Park Slope.  He is the Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee, Assistant Democratic Leader for Intergovernmental Affairs, and Chair of the Democratic Task Force on New Americans.

Contact: Ricja Rice, Esq. | rrice@nysenate.gov | 518-544-2580 ph |518-426-6843 fax