dr. heartman was the recipient of a mcarthur fellowship for her work in the field of women and economics. for those who aren't familiar with that award, it is a very, very special award. so thank you, heidi, for being here. >> good morning, everyone. i want to thank the national committee to preserve and now being our coconspirators in this project. it's been a wonderful way to get out some of the issues we have all been working on for so long and finally this has come to fruition. we're very, very pleased that this day is here. the women's movement, as terry will talk about, has been talking about ways to modernize and improve social security for a very long time. i see some young people in the audience. i want you to know that you are entitled to benefits as a worker. but as carol explained, you are also entitled to benefits as a spouse. and the old days, it used to be that men always earned more than women, so it was mostly the women who took advantage of the spousal benefits. but some women who outearn men. so men may be taking advantage of spousal benefits in the future. and if you d

dr. heartman. our final presenter is terry o'neill. terri o'neill is the president of the national organization for women foundation and the national organization for women, which is the largest feminist grass roots organization in the country with hundreds of thousands of members and supporters in every state and the district of columbia. terri is an attorney and law professor having taught at tulane university and the university of california at davis. and she is widely in demand as a speaker on a range of issues important to women, including equal pay, women's economic well being and social security. and in fact, if i want to see terri and i can't get her on the phone, i turn on msnbc. and if i wait 30 or 40 minutes, i'll see her. for many decades now and the foundation have proposed modernizing social security to better meet the needs of today's women and families. we're hoping by joining forces with these two groups today we can move that forward. terri? >> good morning, everybody. thank you, max. i just want to say that i'm reall

dr. heidi heartman. she's also a research professor at george washington university. thank you for being here. i really appreciate it. >> you're welcome. it's a pleasure. thank you. >> i know that you at the women's institute for women's policy you have done some of the most important and most highly publicized work on this issue. is there any way that the idea of a general based pay disparity is something that depends on how you look at it? is this something other than a blunt truth about the american economy? >> you have the better part of the argument. you've got the census bureau and the bureau of labor statistics agreeing with you and the u.s. general accountability office. i think what the issue is for the republicans is that they believe that that's not, no matter how big the wage gap is none of it is due to discrimination. these numbers from bls and census bureau are not talking about discrimination but the gao study just did. even if you put everything you can think of in the regression equations, the analysis to try to make the gap go away, you still can't e