Fifty years ago today, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, a law designed to close the pay gap between men and women. And now a South Florida lawmaker is calling for a renewed effort to ensure that women get paid the same as their male counterparts.

Democratic Congresswoman Lois Frankel is a co-sponsor of the Paycheck Fairness Act. The law would require employers to show that pay disparities between male and female employees are related to job performance, not gender.
Frankel says the legislation means real dollars for working women.

"In South Florida, if the wage gap were eliminated", Frankel said, "a working woman would have enough money for 51 more weeks of food, three months of mortgage and utility payments, or five months of rent. Or more than 1,600 additional gallons of gas."

A study released in April by the National Partnership for Women & Families shows that South Florida women are earning 86 cents for every dollar their male co-workers earn. That's better than the national average of 77 cents.

Since 2009, the Paycheck Fairness Act has twice been introduced and rejected by Congress.