Even on Equal Pay Day, Jen Beck Refuses to Stand Up for Working Women

For the third time this session, Beck has failed to fight for the paycheck that women deserve

April 6th, 2017

Long Branch – This Tuesday marked Equal Pay Day, the date to which a woman would need to work to earn what her male counterpart made the prior year. Yet despite the day’s overwhelming significance and the glaring gender wage gap in New Jersey, Senator Jennifer Beck yet again refused to stand up for equal pay.

“The outrageous gender wage gap that exists here in New Jersey and across the country affect women, their families, and the economy every single day,” said Vin Gopal, the Democratic candidate for State Senate in LD11. “Equal work deserves equal pay, regardless of gender, and the fact that Jen Beck has let another opportunity go by without supporting working women is simply not okay. Jen Beck needs to remember who she was elected to represent.”

In the last year, Senator Beck voted “no” on equal pay legislation not once, but twice. The bill, SB 992, would have increased penalties for gender based wage discrimination to help ensure equal pay for equal work. Beck voted against the bill first when it reached the floor of the State Senate and then again during an attempt by the State Senate to override Governor Christie’s veto.

On average, New Jersey working women are paid only 80 cents for every dollar paid to a man. This can result in an annual wage gap of nearly $12,000. Combined, the lower wages add up to nearly $16 billion in annual lost earnings across New Jersey. The wage gap can be even larger for minority women in the workplace (National Partnership for Women and Families).