Gender wage gap continues at local and state levels on Equal Pay Day
A woman employed full-time, year-round in Pennsylvania is typically paid just 79 cents for every dollar paid to a man, according to a recent analysis by the National Partnership for Women & Families.
Pam Snyder
Dowling
Cook
Denice Ferranti-Robinson vividly remembers her boss at Gallatin Bank telling her she had earned high marks on an annual performance review but was at the top of her salary range.
Then Ferranti-Robinson’s daughter found out through a summer human resources internship at Integra Bank after it had bought Gallatin Bank that Ferranti-Robinson was making less money than the other seven business development officers, who were all men.
Ferranti-Robinson quit shortly after that.
Three decades later, Ferranti-Robinson is chairwoman of the Uniontown Downtown Business District Authority and treasurer of the Pennsylvania Business and Professional Women’s Foundation. And she senses momentum toward equal pay for women.
But an analysis released Monday by the National Partnership for Women & Families of the latest U.S. Census Bureau data suggests that there’s still a long way to go to close the gender-based wage gap.
The study found that a woman employed full time, year-round in Pennsylvania is typically paid just 79 cents for every dollar paid to a man, resulting in a yearly pay difference of $10,733. According to the study, women lose a combined total of more than $35.4 billion every year to the gender wage gap in Pennsylvania, which was found to have the 23rd-largest cents-on-the-dollar gap in the country.
Women often end up on the wrong side of the pay gap after they take time off to have and raise children, Ferranti-Robinson said, noting that women lose a significant amount of Social Security savings when they leave the workforce for even just a few years, even while working just as hard as a mother as they might have with a full-time job.
If the gender wage gap was closed, a woman working full-time in Pennsylvania on average would be able to afford 80 more weeks of food for her family, more than seven additional months of mortgage and utilities payments and nearly one additional year of tuition and fees for a four-year public university, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families.
“In addition to fundamental fairness, there is a huge economic benefit to equal pay for everyone performing the same job, because more earnings ultimately translate into more spending, which creates additional demand for goods and services,” state Rep. Pam Snyder, D-Jefferson, said.
“I think women need to negotiate better,” Ferranti-Robinson said. “I think a lot of women are just so happy to have a job. They don’t ask for (more) money.”
Ferranti-Robinson has noticed more women running for lawmaker positions and thinks that’ll help close the wage gap as well.
“That’s probably the best way to affect change,” Ferranti-Robinson. “Get more women running for office.”
“I believe in equal pay for equal work not because I am a woman, but because it is the right thing to do,” Snyder said.
Snyder sponsored a House bill in 2014 that if passed would have reinforce the conditions under which employers can pay different wages because of a “factor other than sex” and strengthened protections for those attempting to bring a case against their employer.
“I think it is extremely disappointing that in this day in age women employed full-time, year round in Pennsylvania are typically paid 21 cents less than a man,” Rep. Matt Dowling, R-Uniontown, said. “It definitely shows that there is still more work to be done in fighting for equality. We must examine existing state and federal laws relating to the issue. As a state and as a country, we can do better.”
Rep. Bud Cook, R-Coal Center, on Monday noted his support for equal pay for equal tasks provided as well.
“It’s time to make equal pay a reality, which is why I voted for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009 and am a cosponsor of the Paycheck Fairness Act,” U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said.
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act overturned a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision which restricted the time period for filing employment discrimination complaints regarding compensation.
The Paycheck Fairness Act, introduced last year and endorsed by the National Partnership for Women & Families, would amend equal pay provisions in several ways, including increasing civil penalties for violations of equal pay provisions and directing the U.S. Department of Labor to establish a grant program for negotiation skills training for girls and women and conduct studies to eliminate pay disparities between men and women.
“Republicans in the House and Senate control what comes to the floor and so I urge them to bring up the Paycheck Fairness Act for a vote so we can take an important step forward on equal pay for equal work,” Casey said.
Ferranti-Robinson said from experience that banking is “notorious” for outright wage discrimination, adding that law firms are prone to such discrimination as well.
Women earn just 29.9 percent of what men earn in legal occupations in Fayette County, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, which also found that women earn only 38.4 percent of what men earn in Greene County, 41.3 percent in Washington County and 66.3 percent in Westmoreland County in the same category.
Women earn only 64.6 percent of what men earn in management occupations in Fayette County, per the American Community Survey, as well as 57.2 percent of what men earn in Greene County, 62.7 percent in Washington County and 67.9 percent in Westmoreland County in the same category.
Looking back, Ferranti-Robinson, 70, remembers the fight toward and over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would guarantee equal rights for all citizens regardless of gender which drew support and ratification from 35 states (including Pennsylvania) in the 1970s before ultimately falling short of the 38 necessary state ratifications by a 1982 deadline.
Looking forward to Equal Pay Day on Tuesday, she plans on rallying in support of the cause in Harrisburg.
Looking further ahead, though, she doesn’t know whether the ERA will ever be added to the Constitution.
“I wonder if I will see it in my lifetime,” she said.