the meeting will come daughter and i welcome our ranking member and our members of the committee and of course our our wonderful panelists i have to acknowledge that ms metz used to work with me when she was a fellow here so it was wonderful to have this occasion to have you back before us the chair recognizes yourself for an opening statement and will be followed by the ranking member good morning i want to welcome our distinguished panel of witnesses and thank all of you for your testimony today this hearing is timely because today is equal pay day the day that symbolizes how far into the year that the average full time working woman let's work to earn as much as her male counterpart and the previous year we've made a great deal of progress  closing the gap between men and women's wages since president kennedy signed the equal pay act in one nine hundred sixty three but as the saying goes women's work is never done women earn just seventy eight cents on the dollar as a compared to men for doing the exact same work for minority women the wage gap is even larger african american women earn only sixty two cents for every dollar earned by white men and hispanic women far worse at only fifty three cents the report released by the g a o provides additional evidence of the persistence of the gender pay gap but the working workplace setting is particularly troubling the federal government should be a model employer but today's report tells us we have considerable work left to do to live up to that promise finds that an eleven percent gap remains between men and women in the federal workforce even after accounting for measurable difference is like education occup and work experience the report also finds that the total pay gap shrank between one thousand nine hundred and two thousand and seven from seventy two cents on the dollar to eighty nine cents on the dollar however the share of the gap that can't be explained as remained remarkably constant the issues in the broader labor market i'm proud to have successfully fought for equal compensation as after september eleventh the compensation plan for victims families as it originally was proposed was dated on was based on outdated government formula that that women victims would have worked for less of their lives than their male counterparts in effect the proposed proposed system of compensation was providing less for the family of women victims simply because they were families of women i think is a very sobering and outrageous and a reminder of how institutionalized gender discrimination can be and that there are have to raise the issue because many people just naturally assume that women should be treated in a lesser way women are more productive and better educated than they ever been but their pay hasn't yet caught up the pay gap affects women at all income levels and across a wide range of occupation and it widens as women grow older equal pay is not just a woman's issue it's a family issue the impact of the wage gap is particularly painful in our current canonic downturn as families struggle to make ends meet in the face of stagnant wages and job losses estimate of how much women stand to lose over their lifetime due to an equal pay practices ranging from seven hundred thousand for a high school graduate to two million for doctors and lawyers according to the wage project every dollar counts so much more than ever families should not be shortchanged by gender pay substantial portion of the gap remains explain women continue to bump up against everything from subtle biases to acts of discrimination relating to gender stereotypes about hiring pay raises promotions pregnancy and caregiving responsibility the lilly ledbetter bill was an important start but additional legislation is necessary to close the loopholes in the equal pay act that allow discrimination to p am proud to be co sponsor of the paycheck fairness act which passed the house of representatives earlier this session and i hope the senate will take action better work life balance policies would allow both mothers and fathers  continue to support their families and develop their careers by ensuring that women aren't forced to start all over again in new jobs policies can help keep women on an upward track in their careers  protecting their the federal employees paid parental leave that which i have sponsored would do just that by recognizing the persistence of the problem and taking action we have the opportunity to make next year's equal pay day a celebration of progress and we hope that will happen and i look forward to the testimony of the witnesses and recognize my colleague the ranking member for his opening statement well thank you  and please join in welcoming the panel of witnesses before the committee this morning a key focus of this hearing as noted is the new government accountability office report on women federal workforce according to the new report the difference between characteristics in terms of the jobs they held their educational achievement and their levels of experience between nineteen eighty eight and two thousand and seven the gap between men and women had declined from twenty eight cents on the dollar was careful to state that its findings do not prove or disprove a discrimination the trends noted were poor are similar to those observed in the overall economy in recent decades the pay differential of men and women  for occupation education experience hours and leave has fallen over time although some differences remain men and women with similar characteristics working the same kind of occupations have comparable  the progress women have made over the reflected in a number of ways to nine hundred seventy two thousand seven women's labor force participation rate increase from forty three percent to fifty nine percent women now receive a majority of undergraduate and graduate degrees in two thousand and seven women held over half the jobs in well paid management in professional occupation however as diana ross notes in her testimony this morning higher marginal tax rate could effectively raise taxes on married women by increasing the marriage penalty for some two hundred couples i'm also very concerned that given the grim fiscal outlook of these higher tax rate will eventually be much broader than those proposed by the administration emerges emerging policy makes it much higher taxes and government spending by undermining economic and unemployment growth will harm both women and men in the workforce i would families led by a single female parent i'm deeply disappointed that mothers and sisters have to face not only the rising tide of unemployment but also what amounts to a gender as we have heard in the past there is a component of the gap between wages of similarly situated male and female employees which no variable can explain in detail the analysis and which many attribute to discrimination i'm especially dishearten to see that the wages bready widened in the cases of women with advanced degrees at the putting in the years and years of effort during the reason many women still earn a wage that is lower than equally educated male counterparts which belittles the time and effort required to turn in these credentials equally saddening obvious assistance that women who are also minorities face race discrimination on top of gender bias the persistence of any element of  equal treatment that prevents any american from achieving the full measure of her potential enjoying the full benefits of the right guaranteed american institution is simply unacceptable now importantly we face a situation in which many assume that given the wide space of women the workplace equality has been achieved finally frankly on many fronts many americans assume the discrimination is a thing of the past today's hearing is an important reminder that sadly we cannot limit our vigilance or expect that discrimination is always and only characterized by actions that are readily apparent that is why we need dr randy al belga is a professor of economics and senior research associate at the center for social policy at the university of massachusetts boston covers a broad range of economic policies affecting women especially low income women and families she has written dozens of articles and books on women's economic status she is the co author of the book on level playing field understanding inequality and leading voice promoting equity and education for all women and girls mismatches also work for the now legal defense education fund and older women and was a legislative fellow in my office she is a five beta kappa graduate of ohio university has two master's degree from ohio state and holds an appointment with the women in politics at american university and i'm a oriel appointment to the washington d c commission on women dr previously served as chief of staff at the president's council of economic advisors and is rob was assistant to the president and resident fellow at the american enterprise institute from one thousand nine hundred to two thousand  your testimony and all of you will be given five minutes to summarize your testimony so that there's plenty of time for questions again thank you for your work and thank you for being here today chair maloney and members of the committee  pay to discuss the gender pay gap in the federal workforce previous research shows that despite improvements over time the pay gap remains between men and women in the u s workforce as a whole and within the federal government  based on the report that has been released titled women's gender pay gap in the federal workforce narrows as differences in occupation education and experience diminish to prepare the report we use data from the office of personnel management's central personnel data file this is a database that contains salary and employment related information for the majority of civilian employees in the executive branch we use these data data to perform two kinds of analysis first across sectional analysis that took snapshots of the federal workforce in one thousand nine hundred ninety eight and two thousand and seven to examine differences in pay between men and women in the workforce as a whole over a twenty year period seconds analysis we tracked the group or cohort of employees who entered the workforce in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight to examine differences in pay and the effects of breaks of service and unpaid leave over a twenty year period my statement today focuses on the following question to what extent is that has the pay gap between men and women in the federal workforce changed over the past twenty years and what factors account for the gap using our cross sectional analysis we found that the pay gap the difference between men and women's average pay before taking into account any explanatory factors declined over the twenty year period as you can see from our multi color chart here the overall size of each of the three bars the pay gap declined for twenty eight cents on the dollar in hundred eighty to one thousand cents in ninety eight and further to eleven cents in two thousand and seven for each of the three years all but about seven cents of the gap the white portion of each bar can be explained by differences in measurable factors between men and women differences in occupation the green part of each bar was the major explanatory factor followed to a lesser extent by differences in education levels the orange part and years of federal experience the purple part the yellow portion of the bar represents differences  all other characteristics we measured the pay gap diminished over time largely because men and women in the federal workforce are more alike in these characteristics and they were in past years for example with regard to occupation the pay gap decreased in part because clerical professional and administrative occupational categories became more integrated gender overtime in particular changes in the government's clerical workforce explain a large reduction in the pay gap in one thousand nine hundred eight the clerical work force was among the lowest paid it accounted for thirty eight percent of all female workers federal workers from one thousand nine hundred eighty eight to two thousand and seven the clerical work force shrank in size way about sixty one percent a big drop and also became more integrated with the proportion of women decreasing from eighty five percent to sixty nine percent the gap also decreased as men and women the federal workforce became increasingly similar in their levels of education for example in one thousand nine hundred percent of men that held a bachelor's degree or higher with seventeen percentage points higher than for women compared with six percentage points higher by two thousand and seven finally men and women in the federal government became increasingly similar to levels of federal experience on average men in hundred eight had nearly four more years of federal experience that women were two thousand and seven women on average has slightly more federal experience than women in each of the three years we examined our model cannot account for about seven cents of the pay gap we cannot be sure what accounts for this portion but it could be due to other factors which may be difficult to measure it's important to note this is this analysis neither confirm nor refuse the presence of discriminatory practices for the a ploy to enter the federal workforce in one thousand nine hundred eighty we found that the gender pay grab grew from twenty two cents on the dollar in one thousand nine hundred eight to twenty five cents by two thousand and seven again differences between men's and women's characteristics that can affect especially and don't take into account differences in education job title and responsibility when economic studies include these major determinants of income as the g a o study shows the pay gap shrinks even more nevertheless we need to do all we can to level the playing field so that women are not discouraged by our institutions from dropping out of the workforce one change that has been recently proposed has been to allow the top tax rate to ride this would adversely affect married women because their incomes are frequently secondary it would not only discourage marriage but also discourage married women from working take another break sample amanda with a taxable income of fifty thousand and is in the twenty five percent bracket when they get married they'll be taxed at thirty three percent rising to thirty six percent in two thousand and eleven if congress allows taxes to rise by raising taxes on upper income twenty thousand putting them in the new six percent tax bracket but dropped out of and stayed at home to look after the children that tax bracket with twenty eight percent tax system should not make it harder for women to w eye discrimination policy or recently released that report which concluded that serious problems exist in the enforcement of anti discrimination statutes and regulations within both the equal employment opportunity commission and the department of labor could you comment on these findings and address any changes that have been made as a result of your report i would be happy to do that we made recommendations for both the equal employment opportunity commission and the department of labor to strengthen their inforce meant that we made one recommendation the same one to both we felt that neither one was systematically monitoring the charges that have are recommendations the labor equal employment opportunity commission agreed with our broad recommendations so we'll be monitoring how they implement that department of labor did not take a position so we will be as our normal efforts to track are they implementing the various recommendations we made to improve their enforcement and one of the analysis you conducted in your report suggests that leap patterns did not explain very much of the gender pay gap in the federal workforce i found that interesting i always thought a lot of studies say that the disparity between men and women is the different choices of leaving work to have a child taking care of a sick parent so that was a very interesting to me and could you comment on that a little or propensity to use on one paid leave eighteen percent of women versus eleven percent of men over a twenty year period unpaid unpaid leave over thirty days but that was counterbalanced by to breaks in service men and women had slightly higher propensity of breaks in the service seventy percent of women versus fifteen percent of men had breaks in service overtime women's breaks were somewhat longer but this didn't have any effect on the pay about the mom bomb where you become a mother you get demoted you become a father you get a promotion could you explain that a little more and it says that women really pay a high price for motherhood while men improvement over the last couple decades i would have more experience doing government was chamber of commerce so work for small businesses professionals and what we saw our businesses where we're basically hiring the best people and keeping them is the difference between survival and bankruptcy where you know if you don't treat people right someone down the street is going to hire him away and survive and profit better than you but we saw what i saw in our communities was that women were quickly moving into positions of hostile executives banking executives and small businesses very effectively and in fact i think in the free market system the market itself helps eliminate discrimination because simply companies that practice it fall behind companies that hire unworn the best workers prosper which is why i want to ask first scott ross about what you describe as sort of a tax attack on working women because i have seen this with in the small business community where we encourage women to get that degree we encourage them to go into management positions trying to find maximize their potential to society in the marketplace those are the very people that this new budget would tax the most and penalize the most and in fact the tax really aren't on these tax all their hard work working well on to their family can you talk more about working with absolutely right because when a woman goes into the workforce she doesn't just women of color it's a much it's a much tougher because of the numbers that you just quoted this is about making ends meet this is kitchen table economics this is about being able to put food on the take being able to  important bill on the floor today on the binghamton disaster and i just wanted to congratulate your work in helping the families in helping new yorkers recover from that disaster and the cherokee minutes is that on now yeah sorry for the delay i was just saying that i very much appreciate your bringing about this hearing and i think this is a subject that really needs to  dollar but it drops down depending upon the minority and i think that that is a very important aspect of this too that really needs to to be dealt with one of the things that you were talking about this is  is the failure of education really to generate a hand and equity and the outcome of the of the pay that people get and regardless of what that might be whether it's engineering and mathematics whether it's health and things of that nature or even something like biology even in biology women get on average seventy five cents for the dollar so i'm just wondering why do you think the gender pay gap persists even among college graduates what is it that we should be focusing on to try to deal with that aspect of th employers i'd like to ask all the palm panelists to comment on why is it so hard to change the pay gap if you look at the other g a o report that they did on twenty years of they saw a dominated health care education so the main question i'd like to all panelist on why is it so difficult to chip away at the pay gap we really haven't made  women are affected by this tax structure and i must say that i do know couples who get a divorce equal treatment in the tax structure i know some couples who did a study that showed  that their taxes would go up so they they're living in sin or rather they're living together not to make a judgment on it because of the tax structure now in a country that promotes marriage somewhat on unfair and i will say that i think there's tremendous discrimination against women everywhere that's why i wrote a book about it rumors of our progress are greatly exaggerated in the tax policy to encourage a woman not to work is very discriminatory because many women are divorced and then they give up their careers and they are part of the numbers of women and property the largest determination or factor to term and who's going to be in property in  when i became a mother my husband came to me with chart showing that we were losing money if i worked with a cost of childcare tax structure our family lost money because i was working and that i should drop out of the workforce i am very pleased that i did not drop out but many of my middle class families and friends did drop out of the workforce and i would say very much to their detriment educational opportunities in order to compete in the world economy otherwise we are hurting ourselves as a nation so the numbers that possibly the second word or work are male or female is not a policy that we question to the palace first of all why is it so difficult to bring equity into the workforce and why have we not changed our numbers really since the one in pay discrimination the federal government have become highly educated and we have moved forward with great education but it hasn't been translated in pay equity and the report i saw a report that the nonpartisan bipartisan report showed a consistent twenty percent gap or more between men and women for twenty years this was five years ago this report i'd like to do it again is we have made some some gains but most report  and i have to be very respectful to my colleague so i would like to yield him as much time as i took for his question and then let when i come back i'll ask you that question because i would like to hear what you have to say but we have to be balanced in this and incorporate some of the points that mrs roth has brought up in the maps and take another look at it quite frankly i found that report astonishing that there was a forty five percent gap between men and women and obviously if you're in a profession where it's mandated by law men and women are paid the same and in my profession a member of congress but in most offices they are not and in most offices it's a very deep and  most women work because they have to it's not a choice it's not a luxury it's a necessity to provide income for the families but possibly you would join me in a request to dr shell for a another g a o report that  looks at a twenty five years of pay and see if we've made any success in that range but truly the most fascinating one you did dr cheryl was the look at the at those that have moved into management where in some cases we were losing ground even during times of great prosperity we didn't share the wealth we grew the disparity between men and women in pay and it might be interesting to go back and look at that and an lead during an economic downturn how women are faring in the workforce but ms met so i would now call them on you to continue with your statement and any anyone else would like to make a statement i look forward to your comments i think that  we are making progress in the private in the public sector which is the model but the reports that i've read and i look forward to reading the reports that you mentioned ms ross as i'm sure  critical law when it came to pay equity and court access and it was critical in terms of court access to combat wage discrimination but what it actually came to being able to fight the root causes of why pay equity exists that was not the bill that did it that was literally just a bill that got women in the courthouse doors i put that cabby out there and i think that that's critical to note another one is the job segregation that i mentioned earlier jobs continues to persist it is the product of all kinds of reasons bias in terms of school counseling certainly there is a personal choice there i talked earlier it's not that we want to discourage people from being teachers or nurses or whatever secretaries cosmetologist but we need to look at what how we pay those kinds of jobs and how the market works with that there's a great study up in long island where they paid their groundskeepers more than they paid their first year teachers clearly that's an issue in terms of what we value and what we don't and male professions and female professions i think that there is absolutely now that we have so many more women in the workplace and there is an acknowledgement that for a thriving economy that i preparing and working to meet the demands of a twenty first century competitive global market place that we need women work and we need whim and labor there's no getting around that at the same time i think there's a lot more maternal profiling that goes on because there are assumptions that are made about women who have kids or women who might have kids and so i think that that is absolutely a reason why the pay gap sticks around and the fourth one that i would say is that i think that the government needs to play a find the last bill that we passed to help families balance work and family and equality of rights for women and you're absolutely right that went back to nine hundred ninety three the passage of the family medical leave act we you've been a wonderful fighter for women throughout your career it's my pleasure to have been here today thank you thank you all for your testimony and you're very hard in substantial work the meeting is adjourn