Jan Schakowsky Quotes

It's great that Maryland is tied for having the lowest wage gap between our working men and women of any state in the nation, but there's more work to do to eliminate that gap entirely.

Why do women get paid less money? It doesn't make any sense.

I think how pay gets determined is pretty broad - experience, how people look, what they bring to the job. But there's no question women are paid less. Women don't ask.

Equal pay isn't just a women's issue; when women get equal pay, their family incomes rise and the whole family benefits.

Women are often paid far less than men, while they also perform most of the world's unpaid care work.

Some of you may know my story: How for nineteen years, I worked as a manager for a tire plant in Alabama. And some of you may have lived a similar story: After nearly two decades of hard, proud work, I found out that I was making significantly less money than the men who were doing the same work as me.

After years of research, I discovered 25 differences in the work-life choices of men and women. All 25 lead to men earning more money, but to women having better lives.

What's really sad is that so many young women between the ages of 16 and 25 are ignorant and they already believe that women get the same pay as men. They don't even really understand that equality hasn't happened with the pay force.

Fifty-nine cents. For years, I wore a button - '59 cents.' Many of my colleagues wore it also. The purpose was so that people would come up and ask, 'What does '59 cents' mean?' One could then launch into a discussion about how women working full time in the U.S. earn 59 cents for every dollar earned by men.

Because women still earn just 77 cents for every dollar men make. Those pennies add up to real money.

Paying women equally for comparable work done by men would be the biggest economic stimulus that this country could possibly have … $200 billion dollars into the economy every year and would be way more effective than propping up banks on Wall Street because this money would get spent and not put into Swiss bank accounts.

I have done a great deal of work; as much as a man, but did not get so much pay. I used to work in the field and bind grain, keeping up with the cradler; but men doing no more, got twice as much pay... Women work in the field and do as much work, but do not get the pay. We do as much, we eat as much, we want as much.

What we want is a little money. You men know that you get as much again as women when you write, or for what you do. When we get our rights we shall not have to come to you for money, for then we shall have money enough in our own pockets; and maybe you will ask us for money.

If Donald Trump wants to acknowledge that we have a pay gap for women and we need to address it, I would work with Donald Trump.

You have to have the same power to lead the life you want as a man does, and that means earning the same amount of money. We still have a battle on our hands with that.

You know, for every dollar a man makes a woman makes 63 cents. Now, fifty years ago that was 62 cents. So, with that kind of luck, it’ll be the year 3,888 before we make a buck.

As we move beyond Women's History Month, I am committed to advancing legislation to raise the minimum wage and ensure women are paid equally for equal work.

The 77 cents that women make for every dollar men earn makes a real difference to our families - families stretching to make every dollar count.

The more education a woman has, the wider the gap between men's and women's earnings for the same work.

Discriminatory wage practices undermine women's ability to provide for their families and survive on a decent retirement income.

Most families rely on two incomes to make ends meet, and when a woman earns less, we put working families at a huge disadvantage.

There was no equal pay law when I started working. I was no different to any other woman in any other job at the time.

In 1973, women got 59 cents on the dollar; now we are getting 74 cents on the dollar. In the area of finance and business, we are at 68 cents on the dollar.

You know, this is a business where only 15% make a living wage and only 9% of those are women. But I figured somebody has to be that 15%, somebody's got to be one of those women.

In addition to being an economic security issue, the failure to pay women a salary that's equal to men for equal work is also a women's health issue. The fact is that the salary women are paid directly impacts the type of health care services they are able to access for both themselves and their families.