Women’s Equality Day, Aug. 26, was both a celebration of women’s progress and a reminder that equality remains a goal, not a reality.

On that day in 1920, women gained the right to vote under the 19th Amendment. Today the struggle to advance women’s rights is concentrated on the economic front, with an end to discrimination against women in the labor force a critical and hotly debated objective.

Two proposals now stalled in Congress would improve women’s odds of getting a fair shake in the workplace.

Many companies pay their male employees more than better-qualified women in the same job. Consider the lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the one that the Supreme Court ruled could not proceed as a class-action suit.

Wal-Mart’s records showed that although more than two-thirds of its hourly employees were female, only 15 percent of store managers were women.

The Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act would close many of the loopholes and lax penalties that have made the Equal Pay Act of 1963 ineffective in ensuring pay equity in such cases.

According to the American Association of University Women, one year after graduating from college, women earn only 80 percent as much as their male counterparts in the same field, and after 10 years of experience, women earn only 69 percent as much.

A woman working full time in 2009 earned at the median only 77 percent of what a man earned. In the course of her lifetime, that translates into $400,000 of lost compensation. At the bottom of the wage scale, the poverty rate of 15 percent among working-age women is 30 percent higher than that for men. The top of the income scale is dominated by men: Approximately 80 percent of people earning $100,000 or more per year are men.

The Fair Pay Act of 2011 would require employers to make public the job-related data that is basic to determining whether there has been discrimination. Women who believe they have been discriminated against cannot get the data on jobs and pay scales they need without filing a lawsuit. At some firms, they cannot even ask co-workers about their pay.

The other bill, the Paycheck Fairness Act, clarifies that wage differences must be based on job characteristics, not on gender. If wage discrimination is proved in court, individuals would be able to receive full compensatory and punitive damages, as is already true in cases of discrimination based on race. It would prohibit retaliation by firms against employees who raise wage parity issues.

Progress towards pay equity is vital to the future of our families, and it depends on the passage of proposals such as the Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Marianne Hill is an activist with a Ph.D. in economics. This piece was distributed by the American Forum.