We're doing it!!! Last Friday the U.S. House passed fair pay legislation. This is in no small part due to your efforts, including over 100,000 contacts to Congress by MomsRising members in the past months supporting this legislation.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi even wrote a blog on our homepage about why it was important to have fair pay be among the first bills to pass through the new Congress.[1] You've got some power!

Next stop, the U.S. Senate!

But passing fair pay out of the U.S. Senate is going to take all of our political muscle. Why? This very same bill failed in the U.S. Senate by just three votes last time it came up. Three! Some Senators are still saying they don't support this bill--so they need to hear from all of us that the time to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is now![2] Help get those few needed votes!

*Send a note now to your U.S. Senators to ask them to vote "Yes!" on fair pay (and ask all friends to send a letter in too!):

http://www.momsrisingaction.org/o/1768/t/1546/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26412

If we can get this bill out of the Senate, then it will be a huge victory for women and mothers, and it will be among the first pieces of legislation that President Obama signs into law!

So, please send a quick letter today, and also… forward this email to friends so they can send a letter too. In fact, when you forward this email to friends, they can also play with our handy dandy wage loss calculator below (which shows why fair pay legislation is so very important!).

Great to be working with you. There's no power like mom (and family) power!

- Kristin, Joan, Katie, Mary, and the MomsRising team

P.S. Believe it or not, a recent study found that pay discrimination costs the average women $434,000 over a forty year period of time. You can calculate your own 40-year pay loss at: www.outofthewayoffairpay.org

1. Read Speaker Nancy Pelosi's blog on our site here: http://www.momsrising.org/node/1254

2. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is an important legislative "fix" to a May 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.), which severely limited the ability of victims of pay discrimination to sue and recover damages under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Without this "fix," the impact of the Court's decision will likely be widespread, affecting pay discrimination cases under Title VII involving women and racial and ethnic minorities, as well as cases under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Basically, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is a narrow "fix" to reestablish law that was in place until the U.S. Supreme Court Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. decision of last year. This Act stops us from losing ground on civil rights and fixes a fundamental unfairness in the workplace which many women face.

The Paycheck Fairness Act would improve protections for workers under the Equal Pay Act of 1963 by allowing individuals to better fight pay discrimination, strengthening penalties for violation, compelling employers to explain wage gaps, and developing training for women and girls about salary negotiation.