For years, Republicans have delayed a vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act, legislation that would strengthen penalties against employers who discriminate against women in pay and give women greater opportunity to find out whether they have been discriminated against. But on Thursday, House Democrats announced they were creating a “petition to discharge,” which, if it gets enough signatures, would force the bill out of committee and to a vote. On Thursday night, Minority Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) voiced her support for the move:

If Congress is serious in its efforts to strengthen the middle class, support our workforce, and secure equal rights for every American, we must allow a vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act [...]

Equal pay for equal work’ is not just a slogan; it is the foundation for the health, growth, and prosperity of our families and our economy. When a woman is paid fairly, our whole nation prospers. Let’s work together to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act now.

So far, only Democrats have signed the discharge petition — and it needs a total of 218 signatures, which means 17 Republicans must join in. Republicans blocked another procedural move to give the Act a vote Thursday. During a push by the Senate last year, the bill almost cleared the filibuster hurdle, but fell short.

With growing conversation around equal pay and women’s rights, it’s possible that the bill could gain support. Even Oprah Winfrey, the richest self-made woman in the United States, explained during a recent PBS interview that she was paid less than half of what her male coworker made in her first job:

On average in the United States, women earn 77 cents on a man’s dollar. Those lost wages aren’t just discriminatory; they hurt families and the economy alike. The average lost wages in a woman’s lifetime could feed a family of four for 37 years, and closing the wage gap would amount to huge economic stimulus.

A new report from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research shows that the pay gap between men and women increased between 2011 and 2012, leaving women making $163 less per week:

In 2012, the ratio of women’s to men’s median weekly full-time earnings was 80.9 percent, a decline of more than one percentage point since 2011 when the ratio was 82.2 percent. This corresponds to a weekly gender wage gap of 19.1 percent for 2012. Women’s median weekly earnings in 2012 were $691, a marginal decline compared to 2011; men’s median weekly earnings were $854, a marginal increase compared to 2011.

Another measure of the earnings gap, the ratio of women’s and men’s median annual earnings for full-time year-round workers, was 77.0 in 2011 (data for 2012 are not yet available), less than half of a percentage point lower than in 2010 and equal to the gap in 2009. (This means the annual gender wage gap for full-time year-round workers is 23 percent.)

As Bryce Covert noted at Forbes, “What’s particularly strange about this is that the wage gap typically narrows during a recession.” But women have been hammered by the hemorrhaging of public sector jobs that has occurred in the last few years, as states and the federal governments cut back significantly due to conservative insistence on austerity.

The wage gap between women and men persists even for high-paying jobs, and women are significantly more likely to work for the minimum wage. A woman’s total lifetime earnings lost to the pay gap could feed a family of four for 37 years.

Four years ago today, President Obama signed his first bill into law: the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, meant to address the pay gap between men and women. Ledbetter famously worked years without knowing that she was being paid less than her male co-workers for doing similar work. The Supreme Court threw out a case against her employer, saying that she had waited too long to challenge the pay disparity. The Ledbetter law is meant to ensure that women have ways to take action against pay discrimination.

But even with the passage of Ledbetter, the pay gap remains a stubbornly persistent problem. Here are some facts and figures to know:

– Women make just 77 cents for every $1 made by men. Over a woman’s career, that disparity leads to more than $430,000 in lost wages for an individual woman.

– The amount a woman loses to the pay gap could feed a family of four for 37 years. A woman could also use that money to buy seven degrees at a four-year public university or 14 new cars.

– The pay gap starts early. One year out of college, women make 82 cents for every dollar earned by their male peers for doing similar work.

– The wage gap grows over a woman’s career. For working women in their 20s, “the annual wage gap is $1,702. In the last five years before retirement, however, the annual wage gap jumps to $14,352.”

– A woman’s pay, on average, stops growing when she turns 39. For men, wage growth doesn’t stop until age 48.

– The pay gap plagues higher-paying jobs. Despite women earning more advanced degrees, the pay gap hasn’t closed for specialized professions. Female doctors earn $350,000 less than men over their careers. Female CEOs earn 69 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts, and female lawyers make tens of thousands of dollars less than their male peers.

President Obama mentioned the pay gap in his inauguration speech, saying, “Our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts.” Last week, Rep. Rose DeLauro (D-CT) and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) reintroduced the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would close loopholes in the 1960s-era Equal Pay Act.

During his inaugural speech yesterday, President Obama criticized the gender pay gap, which results in women making 77 cents for every $1 earned by men. “Our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts,” he said.

The gender pay gap has barely budged over the last few decades, even as more women have moved into the ranks of higher-paying professions. The average female doctor, for instance, loses $350,000 to the pay gap.

The gap also hits women right out of college; after one year on the job market, women already earn less than men for doing the same job. In her lifetime, the average woman loses enough in wages to feed a family of four for 37 years.

Obama has already signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. But a larger step towards pay equity could be taken via the Paycheck Fairness Act, which closes loopholes in federal pay discrimination law and implements stronger penalties for employers who discriminate against women. Senate Republicans blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act last year, blasting it as a “war on free enterprise.”

Lawmakers in both the House and Senate plan to reintroduce the Paycheck Fairness Act in the 113th Congress.

Women now make up about one third of the doctors and lawyers in the United States, the Wall Street Journal reports. But for those female employees who expect equal representation in the near future, a discouraging statistic belies the good news: Lady lawyers and doctors still get paid less than their male counterparts for doing the same job.

Since 1970, women have grown from 9.7 percent of physicians to 32.4 percent in 2010. In law careers, women have gone from 4.9 percent to 33.4.

But wages have remained significantly lower for women than men, a problem that the Wall Street Journal asked male Harvard Economist Lawrence Katz to explain. Katz faulted a women’s “individual choices” as part of the reason for unequal pay, and said that “discrimination could also be a factor”:

Despite women’s greater presence in law and medicine, wage gaps between men and women persist in both fields. In 2007, the median income—the point at which half earn more and half earn less—of female lawyers was $90,000, compared with $122,000 for male lawyers, according to research by Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz. The median income of female physicians was $112,128, compared with $186,916 for male physicians. Those differences are largely explained by individual choices, including women taking off time to raise children or opting for less-demanding career tracks or positions that pay less, said Mr. Katz. But a small portion of the gap exists for unclear reasons, he said. Discrimination could also be a factor, though it isn’t clear how much, he said.

Nationally, the average woman makes 77 cents to the average man’s dollar. But the numbers here follow the wider trend that women in the highest-earning professions face the most pay disparity. In law, women are earning about 74 cents for every dollar a man earns. For physicians, that drops down to 60 cents on the dollar. It’s estimated that over their careers, female doctors lose an average of $350,000 to this wage gap.

Institutional sexism is hard to overcome, but there are proposed legislative steps that might ease the pay gap. The Paycheck Fairness Act, which is currently a victim of Congressional gridlock, would have created more pay transparency, protected those who sued for pay equity, and increased the penalties for employers who discriminate. Additionally, there are proposed laws — paid maternity and sick leave chief among them — that would make a woman’s “individual choice” to have a child not negatively impact her career.

Damage estimates for Hurricane Sandy have crept up to about $50 billion, while economists are estimating that the storm could knock more than half a percentage point off of fourth-quarter economic growth. But other economic effects could also come to light.

As Sheila Bapat at RH Reality Check noted, research indicates that after Hurricane Katrina, women’s employment fell in New Orleans while the wage gap widened:

Hurricane Katrina is believed by some to have hurt New Orleans women’s economic status in the years that followed — specifically women’s workforce participation and the gender gap in wages. Tulane University’s Newcomb College Center for Research on Women published a report in December 2008 that primarily evaluates United States Census Bureau data from the two years following Katrina, showing that post-Katrina labor force participation rates dropped more for women than it did for men (-6.6 percent for females; -3.8 percent for males in 2007).

And a year after Hurricane Katrina, the average earnings of women of color declined as well. The Tulane report notes that “the median earnings of White, Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino men increased. In contrast, only the average earnings of White women showed a slight increase; the median earnings of Black/ African American women and Hispanic/Latinas fell.”

The Tulane report explains that barriers to women’s employment—including lack of schools, childcare facilities, housing and public transportation—magnified in post-storm New Orleans, and may have resulted in drops in both workforce participation and wages.

According to the Tulane report, labor shortages in the city should have created favorable wage conditions. However, women still lost ground:

Labor shortages in New Orleans following Katrina created a favorable bargaining position for workers to negotiate higher wages. However, these higher wages have not accrued to women workers whose wages on average increased by just 3.7 percent between 2005 and 2007. An inflation rate of 6.1 percent in the same time period basically eliminated any possible gain.10 Moreover, while the median earnings for all women increased slightly, the average earnings for White women dropped 5.2 percent, from $39,988 in 2005 to $37,916 in 2007, while the median earnings of Black/African American women dropped 3.3 percent, from $24,037 in 2005 to $23,240 in 2007.

Obviously, Hurricane Sandy was no Katrina. But populations that are already economically disadvantaged are more likely to lose ground due to a hurricane or other natural disaster, and Tulane’s report shows that women struggling to close the pay gap may be no exception.

On graduation day, men and women walk across the stage as equals to get their college diplomas. But one year later, a new study shows, female graduates can expect to be earning less — about 82 cents on the dollar — than their male peers. The old problem of a pay gap is already prevalent in the newest generation to enter the workforce.

According to the report by the American Association of University Women, female graduates have a lower rate of full time employment, hold far more administrative jobs, and make up a smaller percentage of the industries that pay the most.

But female graduates also earn less even when they have the same major and same jobs, particularly those who majored in engineering, computer science, business, and the social sciences:

This study points to discrimination in hiring and pay practices, where women are expected to do the same job for less. This reaffirms a recent study that compared the hiring tendencies of science labs on college campuses, which found men were hired and paid more even with identical resumes to female candidates. It also blows a hole in the argument that women are paid less because they take time off to have children, since most female graduates entering the workforce aren’t immediately dropping back out of it.

Closing the pay gap could have a huge impact — and not just for women. The Huffington Post reports that making pay equal by gender would create a stimulus with the potential to grow the US economy by 3 to 4 percent. That’s more than double what the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act did, and that stimulus hugely helped the US recovery.