For the last three years, Mississippi stood alone as the only state in the country that did not have a bill requiring employers to pay workers of all genders the same wages for the same job.
Late last month, the Mississippi legislature passed an equal pay bill for the first time in its history. It now awaits Republican Gov. Tate Reeves’s signature.
Prominent female lawmakers in the state have praised the bill as a historic step that will help Mississippi close one of the worst pay gaps in the nation.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, in a statement shared with Axios last month, called H.B. 770 a “giant leap forward in closing the twenty-seven percent pay gap — that makes it harder for working women and their families, that leads to young Mississippi women taking their talents beyond our borders, and that perpetuates the cycle of poverty in our State.”
“The bill actually harms the equal pay cause by providing much fewer protections than the current federal law does,” said Shannon Williams, director of the Equal Pay Today campaign, a coalition of liberal organizations pushing to close the gender wage gap.
Williams said it would write into law some of the very practices that perpetuate pay discrimination.
“I don’t know why we’re calling it an equal pay bill,” she said. “It actually gives employers more excuses to get away with paying women less.”
Federal laws already protect women against wage discrimination: The Equal Pay Act of 1963 prohibits sex-based discrimination...
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