Every two years since 1997, the AFL-CIO has surveyed thousands of working women to gauge attitudes on issues such as wages, benefits and opportunities.

And this year, they're mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

"There's a strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the lack of equality," said Karen Nussbaum, executive director of Working America, a affiliate of the AFL-CIO. "This is still a burning issue for women."

Ms. Nussbaum said the level of concern over equal pay came as a surprise even to her -- two-thirds of respondents included comments in addition to their survey responses. A keyword search on the comments yielded several references to "second class citizens" and "working twice as hard."

The survey, which will be officially released today, was not a random sample; women responded to the survey online, where it was posted on Web sites of unions and women's organizations. Thirty percent of survey respondents were union members, two-thirds had college degrees and two-thirds were older than 40.

The most pressing concern of women responding to the survey was the rising cost of health care: Nearly 80 percent rated their anxiety about health care as a nine or 10 on a scale from zero to 10.

Despite an improvement in the national economy from the time the survey was last administered two years ago, Ms. Nussbaum said womens' attitudes did not seem any rosier.

"You get these figures in the media about employment and gross national product," she said. "But when you talk to women themselves, they say, 'I don't have health insurance and I used to.' "