• Even after accounting for differences in education, age, location and the number of hours worked, America's working families lose a staggering $200 billion of income annually to the wage gap. This is an average loss of more than $4,000 each for working women's families every year because of unequal pay.
• If single working mothers earned as much as comparable men, their family incomes would increase by nearly 17 percent, and their poverty rates would be cut in half.

Nancy Pelosi released the following statement and promised action from the democratic congress: "Today, I join women and working families throughout the country to commemorate Equal Pay Day. This day symbolizes the date, three and a half months into the new year, at which the wages paid to women in the United State catch up to the wages paid to men in the previous year.

"It is unbelievable and unacceptable that in the year 2003 we are still marking this wage disparity. Women pay equal taxes, women serve as CEOs of major corporations and women sacrifice their lives in the line of battle. Yet, 40 years after the Equal Pay Act was passed, women are still making 76 cents to every dollar a man makes in the same or comparable work. For women of color, the disparity is even greater -- 65 cents to the dollar for African American women, and only 53 cents for Hispanic women."

Supporting pay equity will lead to healthier families and better retirement benefits with more independence in old age for all women. It improves our work force and it tells our children that we actually believe what we teach them about fairness and justice and that pesky American dream. The National Committee on Pay Equity has suggestions for business owners to assess their wage practices and offers tips for employees seeking better wages. What better way to honor our mothers, wives, daughters than to demand that they get equal pay for equal work.