As April 14, is noted as “Pay Equity Day,” this is the day when the average American woman’s (employed full time in the labor force) earnings are equal to the average American man’s 2014 earnings. While this day is earlier in the year than when these numbers were first calculated, the Lilly Ledbetter Act did not solve the problem as it only gave a woman the right to sue her employer if she found she earned less than a male colleague in the same organization doing the same job. Ledbetter needs to be complemented by the proposed Pay Equity bill that has been introduced in the U.S. Congress since 2009. Ledbetter had bipartisan support and pay equity ought to as well. Perhaps we need to introduce Pay Equity state by state — mandating equal pay for equal work with the force of law so that suing for equity has the states’ attorney generals mandated to support equal wages for women.

Early in the 1970s, the college where I taught economics discovered that their women faculty members were paid less than their men with comparable education and experience. For two years, the Board of Trustees approved the application of funds, designated for annual increases, be used to raise women’s salaries to a comparable level thus significantly narrowing or eliminating the previous gap. That could well be a model for narrowing the present gap in wages in Maine and other states.

Charlotte A. Price Faculty emerita, Sarah Lawrence College Brunswick