anything. and they they ll just take care of their family and they take care of themselves and they don t complain a lot. you know, but at a certain point, we have the power to do something about it. for the next generation. and this is a good place to start. so for everybody out there who s listening, ask your senator where you stand on paycheck fairness. if they tell you that there s not a pay gap out there, you tell them to look at the data, because there is. it s time to get this done. and i m going to do my small part right now by signing these executive orders. [ applause ] as the president sits down to sign both an executive order and executive memorandum, you could effectively say happy national equal pay day, unless you re one of those people out there who happens to be a woman who across
we can t leave that to chance. over the course of lily s career, she lost more than $200,000 in salary. even more in pension and social security benefits, both of which are pegged to salary. simply because shes wi s witwas. and lily and some of the other women here decided it was wrong. set out to fix it. they went to their boxes. they went to their bosses. that didn t work. they filed suit. after years of waiting and persisting, they finally got some justice. well, tomorrow the senate could pay tribute to their courage by voting yes for paycheck fairness. this should not be a hard proposition. it should not be that complicated. so far, republicans in congress have been gumming up the works, they ve been blocking the
obama beat mitt romney by 36 points among single women. if these paycheck issues, if these pocketbook issues speak to them, so be it. the republicans seem to be literally in crisis around all issues that affect women, whether social, economic or political. and they ve gotten into a lot of problems with some of their comments about contraception, but i think that comments that say these problems that women are phasing are just politics and are a distraction, i think those are as offensive frankly. because you can say it s about politics. it is about politics. but what is really happening here is there is a problem to be solved. and it s just an up or down issue tomorrow. are you going to vote for paycheck fairness or against paycheck fairness? you can say anything you want, distraction or say the studies aren t true even though there has been study after study documenting this, the bottom
our workforce. and they re increasingly the breadwinners for a whole lot of families out there. so when they make less money, it means less money for gas, less money for groceries, less money for child care. less money for college tuition. reporter: an executive order bans government contractors from targeting workers who talk about their salaries. a presidential memorandum requires a report on workers pay by race and gender to help identify cases of discrimination. but both moves still leave a lot of women out. he is leading by example, but at the same time today, he called on congress to pass a piece of legislation that has been sitting up on the hill today called paycheck fairness. it would do the same thing as the executive order would do, except it would apply to all employers around the country. reporter: and while the president often says women make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns, even his own labor department puts that number higher, at 81 cents. and the conservati
a pleasure to be with you. so everybody wants women who are doing exactly the same work as men to get equal pay. that s not controversial. here s the question. what has taken so long? the lily ledbetter act was the first step in this direction. now the president s taking additional steps what, five years later? so why has it taken so long to move on and make sure this really does happen in our country? well, every single year, the president has been supporting a piece of legislation that is sitting up on the hill right now called paycheck fairness. that law would do the same thing he did today by executive order, except it would apply to all employers. our goal is to get congress to act to cover all employers. as he said n thin this year s s of the action, where congress fails to act, he will take action. yet he s still pushing congress to pass a very important legislation that would benefit every single woman out there who has no idea whether or not she s