Equal pay debated by legislators
Four state lawmakers from the area debated how the national wage disparity between the sexes can be narrowed – or whether it even exists at all – and a variety of other hot-button issues Friday afternoon at a League of Women Voters panel discussion.
“I think this is the most politicized and mischaracterized issue today,” state Rep. Rick Saccone, R-Elizabeth, said when asked the question about the perceived pay gap.
Saccone, R-Elizabeth, pointed to government, military, hospital and union jobs that use graded pay scales to ensure each employee is paid the wage they’re worth. He added he thinks experience and longevity have more to do with differing pay scales between workers.
“They’re not comparing apples to apples,” Saccone said of the complaints.
State Rep. Pam Snyder, D-Jefferson, disagreed with Saccone’s assessment and said the Legislature needs to debate both pay gaps and the minimum wage. She suggested a “tiered” increase in the minimum wage, similar to the system used in the last increase nearly a decade ago, would ease the blow to businesses.
“It’s 2015, and we’re still talking about pay inequity?” Snyder said. “It’s important we codify this, and it needs to be stopped.”
Washington resident Marjorie Green agreed, and spent a few minutes after the luncheon chatting with Saccone about equal pay and school funding.
“Well, there isn’t equal pay,” Green said. “I think it should be fixed. There’s always hope, but this has been going on forever, and they’re slow to coming around to it.”
Newly elected state Rep. Jason Ortitay, R-South Fayette, touted an upcoming House resolution designed to create a joint state commission to review state equal pay laws and studies in an attempt to deter wage disparities between men and women.
“It blows my mind that equal pay isn’t fair yet,” Ortitay said.
That resolution has been pushed to the House floor, according to state Rep. Brandon Neuman, D-North Strabane, who is a member of the Labor and Industry Committee. He thinks the opportunity for women to be trained and work in higher-paying fields is critical to narrowing the wage gap.
“Men and women should be introduced to the same good-paying jobs together earlier,” Neuman said. “There are some things that we can do, and it needs to be done through education.”
The four legislators spent about an hour discussing that and several other issues at the league’s annual panel luncheon at Citizens Library in Washington that ranged from managing fracking wastewater to the future of school funding.
Once again, Snyder and Saccone had different opinions of school funding during their two-minute answers.
Snyder said she’s waiting to read a study from the Campaign of Fair Education Funding “coalition” on how to make improvements, but she did not think increasing the sales tax and state income tax, which has been proposed in the past, is a viable option.
“You need to find a different way to fund public education,” Snyder said. “It’s based on your zip code, the opportunities you have, and that’s wrong.”
Saccone has been a proponent of a previously defeated plan to eliminate property taxes in exchange for increasing the sales and income taxes, and said he would like to revisit it this session. Saccone also said pension reform is needed as lawmakers tackle increasing school district and state legacy debts.
“The pensions, in particular, are killing us right now,” Saccone said. “Until we reform pensions, we’re going to continue to have these problems.”
State Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Carroll, and state Rep. Peter Daley, D-California, had been expected to speak at the luncheon but were not in attendance.