In January Republican Rosa DeLauro introduced the Paycheck Fairness Act, a measure intended to strengthen equal pay protections for women.

The landmark Equal Pay Act of 1963 had made it illegal for employers to pay unequal wages to men and women who perform substantially equal work, but these laws have not closed the persistent gap between men’s and women’s wages.

Women who work full time are paid, on average, only 80 per cent of every dollar paid to men. This happens in every state - regardless of geography, occupation, education or work patterns.

The proposed Paycheck Fairness Act would ban employers nationwide from asking job applicants about their salary history and employers would be required to prove that any pay gaps between men and women are legitimately job-related.

With regard to employees, the Paycheck Fairness Act would protect against retaliation for discussing salaries with colleagues and prohibit employers from screening job applicants based on their salary history - or for requiring salary history during the interview process.

In addition, it would provide plaintiffs who file sex-based wage discrimination claims under the Equal Pay Act, with the same remedies as are available to plaintiffs who file race or ethnicity based wage discrimination claims under the Civil Rights Act; remove obstacles in the Equal Pay Act to facilitate plaintiffs’ participation in class action lawsuits that challenge systemic pay discrimination and create a negotiation skills training program for women and girls.

On February 13th during a joint hearing of two U.S. House of Representatives Education and Labor subcommittees, Republican Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore pointed out that equal pay for equal work - regardless of sex - is a fundamental concept that has been a part of the law for more than half a century, but women still face barriers to equal pay.

She went on to say that it is difficult to prove pay discrimination, especially when businesses keep information about wages and raises a secret - and that discriminatory pay practices are keeping some women in poverty.

Republican Bradley Byrne, R-Ala, whilst agreeing that women deserve equal pay for equal work, said that the Paycheck Fairness Act offers no new protections against pay discrimination. He added that it also imposes an inflexible mandate on employers that strictly limits their communications with employees during the hiring process, but that it would be a "cash cow" for the attorneys of plaintiffs' by making it easier to sue employers - resulting in long legal battles for the women who bring claims.

Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said that the bill would force employers to make salaries transparent and stop them from asking about pay history.

She said,

"It is time that we pay people what they are worth and not how little they are desperate enough to accept. And that has nothing to do with their history - it has everything to do with what they are worth today”.