By Kim Ahern

Read the original article at Rhode Islands Future.

Unmarried Women.

You'll recall that Congress is still trying to pass the Ledbetter Act to remedy the Supreme Court's decision last term. Unfortunately, President Bush is going to veto it, so now we need 60 votes! Well, to add this awful decision by our President, a study just released by Women's Voices, Women's Vote, finds that unmarried women, earn on average $12,000 less than unmarried men:

"On Tuesday, our nation recognizes Equal Pay Day, and takes a look at how far into the year a woman would have to work to earn as much as a man earned the previous year," said Page Gardner, President of Women's Voices Women Vote. "Income disparities hit unmarried women the hardest, resulting in a women on her own having to work until September 27 of the following year to earn as much money as a typical man makes."

Kim Ahern, Who is hardest hit by Pay Inequality?

The Lake Research Partners study, commissioned by Women's Voices Women Vote, found unmarried women earn only 56 cents for every dollar a married man earns. In terms of personal earnings, unmarried women live on only $37,264 per year, which is nearly $6,000 less than unmarried men ($42,843) and nearly $30,000 less than married men ($66,646) earn.

"Unmarried women are 53 million strong in this country, and they work hard every day to provide for their families and create better futures for themselves," said Gardner. "These women are making it on their own, and deserve to be compensated equally to men and married women for the work they do," Gardner said.

The full report is available here. What can you do? Call your Senators and tell them to support the Ledbetter Act and ask them to help override President Bush's veto.

Senator Kennedy had this to say the other day on the Senate floor:

The guarantee of equal pay was first enacted in 1963. When President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, he emphasized that protection against pay discrimination is "basic to democracy," and those words are still true today.