Secretary of State Dunlap discusses impact of REAL ID implementation on Maine travelers

01/11/2016 03:57 PM EST

AUGUSTA - Travelers can continue to use their Maine driver's licenses as identification to board airplanes through the next two years, Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap announced Monday, following a recent statement by the federal Department of Homeland Security.

The DHS is entering the final phase of the REAL ID Act, a federal law passed in 2005 that seeks to improve the security standards for state-issued identification. Beginning on Jan. 22, 2018, a REAL ID-compliant form of identification will be required for air travelers to board a commercial domestic flight. Those with drivers licenses issued from a state that is not REAL ID-compliant and has not received a deadline extension from DHS will have to provide an acceptable alternative form of identification, as listed on the DHS website at https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/identification .

Currently, the State of Maine is not REAL ID-compliant, but has received multiple annual extensions to fully comply with the Act, the most recent of which will expire in October 2016. Thus, Maine driver's licenses will continue to serve as acceptable identification for air travel until the Jan. 22, 2018 deadline - and possibly beyond that time, should Maine receive additional extensions.

According to the DHS, 23 states are now fully compliant with the REAL ID Act. Maine is one of 27 states that have received extensions for demonstrating steps toward compliance. Six states and territories - Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Washington, and American Samoa - are noncompliant and do not currently have extensions.

The DHS is encouraging states to become compliant with REAL ID in the next few years, since extensions will no longer be granted as of Oct. 1, 2020.

The State of Maine Legislature has voted against several provisions of the REAL ID Act, so a law change would be necessary to reach full compliance. Travelers are encouraged to check the REAL ID compliance status of the State of Maine on the DHS website at http://www.dhs.gov/real-id-enforcement-brief .

Fifty Two Years Ago Today, June 10, A Law Was Passed Into Action Requiring Equal Pay Without Gender Descrimination. How Do We Measure Up Today?

I visited family in Massachusetts recently, and while there, overhead a woman talking to her friend about how she had been shortchanged on a raise and promotion in favor of a much less qualified male co-worker. I started to think about how long it had been since the days when women had been required to go to work in order to help their husbands maintain their households and feed their children. I found that it's been over 50 years since the Equal Pay laws have been in effect, but then when researching the statistics of today, I was amazed at what I found regarding the amount of money a woman makes, for doing the same job as a man.

Fifty two years ago, President John F. Kennedy signed into law on today's date, June 10, a bill that would further prevent women from being discriminated against in the workplace solely on account of their gender.

Today, we hear all the time that while women's pay amounts have come closer to their male counterparts, the AAUW states that women are still making about 78% of the amount that men make for doing the exact same job, (Report Spring 2015), and that number has remain roughly unchanged in over a decade.

It is amazing that many of us are as old as this bill and how our mothers and grandmothers sought equal pay for equal work and yet, we still can not seem to bridge the gap between genders in the realm of the workforce paycheck.

According to Wikipedia:

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 is a United States federal law amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, aimed at abolishing wage differences based solely on gender. It was signed into law on June 10, 1963, by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program. In passing the bill, Congress stated that sex discrimination:

• depresses wages and living standards for employees necessary for their health and efficiency;
• prevents the maximum utilization of the available labor resources;
• tends to cause labor disputes, thereby burdening, affecting, and obstructing commerce;
• burdens commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce; and
• constitutes an unfair method of competition.

The law provides (in part) that:

No employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section [section 206 of title 29 of the United States Code] shall discriminate, within any establishment in which such employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on jobs[,] the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions, except where such payment is made pursuant to (i) a seniority system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or (iv) a differential based on any other factor other than sex