CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Wednesday marked Equal Pay Day — a date symbolizing how far women have to work in the new year to make the same amount their male colleagues did the previous year — and West Virginia lawmakers and advocates are among the people trying to close the gap.
Senate Bills 43 and 288 as well as House Bill 3247 and 2121 are aimed at addressing the issue, although no committees have advanced the legislation to the full chamber.
“They have to get on a committee by the end of this week,” Delegate Barbara Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, said during a virtual roundtable. “The session ends on April 10 and crossover day is March 31, so we are really at a critical point right now.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, women who work full time make 82 cents of every dollar a man makes. The gap increases when factors such as race are considered.
Fleischauer is the lead sponsor of House Bill 2121 — the Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan Fair Pay Act — which would make it unlawful for an employer to forbid employees from sharing information related to their wages and benefits.
“They were geniuses from West Virginia and they were not paid fairly,” Fleischauer said of Johnson and Vaughan, who were mathematicians during NASA’s first efforts in space exploration. “They helped our country land a person on the moon. It’s so insulting.”
Owens Brown, the president of the state NAACP chapter, said women have yet to receive equal treatment despite centuries of fighting for such.
“In 2021 women in West Virginia are still struggling for fair wages, the same as Katherine Johnson and Katherine Vaughan did 68 years ago,” he added.
Marion County Sen. Mike Caputo said now is the time to address the issue.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do away with that because everything was the way it’s supposed to be and women were getting paid equally as men?” he said.
Wednesday marked the 43rd day of the regular legislative session.