Local leaders want equal pay today
A group of young women from Making a Change 4 Girls (MAC4G) of Uniontown Area High School participated in the Equal Pay Day Rally on the steps of the Fayette County Courthouse. The rally was hosted by Business and Professional Women of Pennsylvania.
Nancy Werner of East Greenville gives a brief speech at the Equal Pay Day Rally on the steps of the Fayette County Courthouse. The rally was hosted by Business and Professional Women of Pennsylvania.
Mike Tony | Herald-Standard
Mike Tony | Herald-Standard The gender pay gap in Fayette County has increased substantially since 2010 and remains in quintuple digits, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
The gender pay gap seems to be increasing in Washington and Westmoreland counties, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
Equal Pay Day was recognized across America this week as a time to acknowledge gender pay inequality throughout the country, as on a percentage basis nationwide, a woman earns only 79 percent of what a man earns.
“Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I should get paid less,” Masontown Mayor Toni Petrus said. “A woman always has to prove something for some reason.”
But the gender pay gap is especially wide and increasing in southwestern Pennsylvania.
According to American Community Survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties are dealing with a persistent gender pay gap. In Fayette County, women working full-time year-round made $28,240 annually on average from 2005 to 2014, almost exactly $10,000 less than the $38,239 men working full-time year-round made on average during the same span.
The gap is wider in Washington and Westmoreland counties. In Westmoreland County, women working full-time year-round made $33,558 annually on average from 2005 through 2014, nearly $13,000 less than the $46,495 men with the same work status made on average during that span. And the gap was greater still in Washington County, where women working full-time year-round made $34,191 annually on average from 2005 to 2014, more than $14,000 less than men’s $48,897 on average. Data was not available for Greene County.
“In the year 2016, we should not have this kind of inequality,” Westmoreland County Commissioner Gina Cerelli said, adding that the human resources department procedures of private companies should be scrutinized and set up to pay employees with equal experience and skills equally.
A report published this month by the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee found that Congressional District 18, which includes part or all of Greene, Washington, Westmoreland and Allegheny counties, had a 26.6 percent gender pay gap, the highest among any of the 18 congressional districts in the state.
The 9th Congressional District, which includes part or all of Fayette, Greene and Washington counties, had the fourth-highest gender pay gap at 25 percent.
Washington County Commissioner Larry Maggi said the oil and gas industry has contributed to the local gender pay gap.
“It’s just something that’s kind of been a good old boys network, a male-oriented industry for a lot of years,” he said.
Maggi said that local energy companies have been working in recent years to attract more women employees, with women increasingly moving into management positions in those companies. Maggi added that the county has adjusted starting salaries for women employees in an effort to welcome more of them.
“It’s a fluid process,” Maggi said. “We’re not going to solve it overnight.”
Fayette County Commissioner Vince Vicites said Fayette’s high unemployment and underemployment are likely factors in that county’s gender pay gap.
Rep. Pam Snyder, D-Jefferson, said she was especially disturbed that 18th District’s gender pay gap was the greatest in the state. She also recalled that she suffered from gender pay inequality in the late 1980s, making less than a man who held the same position before her.
“I did my job and kept going, hoping it would be made equitable,” Snyder said. “It never was.”
Snyder said that she supported adding the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would affirm that all citizens deserve equal rights under the law regardless of gender.
“For so long, it’s been a man’s world in so many facets of life,” Snyder said. “It’s been acceptable for so many years. Here we are still talking about it.”
The Joint Economic Committee’s report notes several factors that contribute to the gender pay gap, including that women are more likely than men to be primary caregivers of other families and interrupt their careers to care for children, and that women tend to study in lower-paying fields. The report also cites evidence that some women continue to be paid less for doing work substantially the same as work done by men and notes that the U.S. is the only advanced country without guaranteed paid maternity leave.
Career-long wage disparities jeopardize women’s retirement security and result in less pension income for women and a higher percentage of women who live in poverty after age 65 than men, the report noted.
The committee’s report endorsed the Paycheck Fairness Act, proposed legislation that would require that wage comparisons be made across multiple establishments within the same county or political jurisdiction under the same employer. The bill would also prohibit employers from defending unequal pay for “equal work” for reasons that are not directly related to job content and performance.
In a conference call with reporters Tuesday, actress Patricia Arquette noted former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s 2011 interview with the legal magazine California Lawyer in which Scalia said that the U.S. Constitution does not require discrimination on basis of gender, but also does not prohibit it.
“We’re at the mercy of whoever’s in power at any given time,” Arquette said in support of the ERA. “If women were a part of our founding document, there’d be so much more protection for them.”
“Awareness is mentally important, something all of us can do,” Westmoreland County Commissioner Ted Kopas said. “But unfortunately, the comprehensive change has to be done in Congress.”
“All men are created equal,” Snyder said. “Let’s live that.”