VOA标准英语2015--Advocates Rally for Gender Pay Parity, New Legislation

Advocates Rally for Gender¹ Pay Parity², New Legislation

NEW YORK—

Activists³ gathered in New York on Tuesday — Equal Pay Day — to highlight a long-standing national problem: the gender pay gap.

Congress passed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, but more than 50 years later, pay inequality continues. American women make 78 cents on the dollar compared with their male counterparts, according the U.S. Bureau of Labor⁴ Statistics.

For women of color the difference is even more dramatic: African-American women make just 64 cents per dollar of men's earnings⁵, and Latinas make 56 cents, according to the White House.

“This is not a women’s rights issue, this is a human rights issue," said Martha Kamber, chief executive officer of the YWCA in Brooklyn. "Women are mothers. We are raising the children of the future, the next generation, and if we can’t earn enough to support our families, then everybody, the whole community, suffers.”

Robert Cornegy, a New York city councilman, said he he tells his daughters every day "that if they are smart and they work hard, they can accomplish anything. I don’t want to tell them a lie. I want them to feel like they will be compensated⁶ equally for everything they do.”

The White House says the pay gap costs women nearly $450 billion a year in lost income.  Beverly Neufeld said she founded "PowHer NY" to try to accelerate economic fairness.  

“Because of the wage gap, the average woman working full time has to work about 15 months to make what the average white male makes in one year," Neufeld said. "So that’s a lot of bread [money], and it adds up over the course of a career and the course of a lifetime.”

The issue has received national attention and was highlighted by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address in January.

“Nothing helps families make ends meet like higher wages," he said at the time. "That’s why this Congress still needs to pass a law that makes sure a woman is paid the same as a man for doing the same work.”

But pay parity legislation has consistently stalled at the federal level. That's why lawmakers in several states have decided⁷ to take action.

In New York, state Assemblywoman Michele Titus introduced the Equal Pay Bill, which is expected to pass this year.  It will protect employees who talk about their salary from employer retaliation⁸.

“Employers don't usually allow their employees to discuss what pay other employees are receiving," she said. "So this is sort of like a silent discrimination — if you don’t know it’s there, you really can’t combat it.”

Advocates say the pay gap affects more than just women. A Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census⁹ Bureau data released two years ago found that 40 percent of all households with children under age 18 included mothers who were either the sole or primary source of income for the family. As a result, activists say, the equal pay issue has an outsized impact on families.

1 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

2 parity   

n.平价，等价，比价，对等

参考例句：

• The two currencies have now reached parity.这两种货币现已达到同等价值。
• Women have yet to achieve wage or occupational parity in many fields.女性在很多领域还没能争取到薪金、职位方面的平等。

3 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

5 earnings   

n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得

参考例句：

• That old man lives on the earnings of his daughter.那个老人靠他女儿的收入维持生活。
• Last year there was a 20% decrease in his earnings.去年他的收入减少了20%。

6 compensated   

补偿，报酬( compensate的过去式和过去分词 )； 给（某人）赔偿（或赔款）

参考例句：

• The marvelous acting compensated for the play's weak script. 本剧的精彩表演弥补了剧本的不足。
• I compensated his loss with money. 我赔偿他经济损失。

7 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

8 retaliation   

n.报复，反击

参考例句：

• retaliation against UN workers 对联合国工作人员的报复
• He never said a single word in retaliation. 他从未说过一句反击的话。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。