[V]ermont’s gender pay gap, while narrower than the national average, is still staggering: women earn only about 86 cents for every dollar a man makes.
Acknowledging this disparity, Gov. Phil Scott signed a proclamation Wednesday declaring April 10 “Equal Pay Day” in the state.
Equal Pay Day is recognized around the country as the symbolic date each year when women will have caught up with the earnings of a man the previous year, based on national census data showing that a woman earns 80 cents for every dollar a man makes.
“For single women in Vermont, the difference in pay is the equivalent of about seven months of rent,” Cary Brown, the executive director of the Vermont Commission on Women, said at the proclamation signing event.
“For the state as a whole, that difference in pay is about a billion dollars that’s not going into the Vermont economy,” she said.
Women of color, women with disabilities and LGBTQ women face even wider wage gaps, according to Brown.
In Vermont, Hispanic or Latino women earn 80 percent of what men do, and Asian women earn 58 percent, according to Scott’s proclamation. Disabled women in Vermont only make 37 percent of men’s earnings, it says. Nationally, black women earn 63 cents on the dollar compared to men and Native American women earn 57 cents, according to the proclamation.
Scott said that working to close the wage gap in Vermont has been among his priorities. “One of my goals as governor is to have a stronger, more diverse and more talented workforce and that means giving women equal opportunities to succeed,” Scott said.
Those efforts included creating a standardized sexual harassment training program for state employees, the governor said, adding that 50 percent of senior staff and nearly half of his cabinet is made up of women.
In a February letter, Scott urged Speaker of the House Mitzi Johnson and Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ashe to pass one of two equal pay bills — S.275 or H.294 — so he could sign it before Town Meeting Day. Neither of the bills reached his desk before that deadline.
H.294, a bill that would prohibit employers from requiring prospective employees to submit their salary histories, passed the House in February. S.275 would amend the Vermont Fair Employment Practices Act to extend protected status to employees based on race and sexual orientation, in addition to banning salary transparency.
Both bills remain in the Senate Committee on Economic Development.
There are a few other proposals in the Legislature this session could also help address Vermont’s gender wage gap.
The Senate is considering H.196, a paid family leave proposal passed by the House last year which would create a state insurance program that provides paid support for certain employees who take six weeks off to care for a newborn, a foster child or family members who are seriously ill.
Under the House bill, the program would be funded by a 0.14 percent payroll tax paid by employees only.
S.40, a proposal that would increase the minimum wage from $10.50 to $15 an hour by 2024 could also help narrow the gap, according to Brown.
“More women than men are earning minimum wage,” she said in an interview, “so when you raise their wages you’re going to have a disproportionate impact on women.”
