Shusterman calls on state Senate to pass equal pay
Rep. Melissa Shusterman March 24, 2026 | 2:30 PM
HARRISBURG, March 24 – State Rep. Melissa Shusterman, D-Chester, along with fellow legislators and stakeholders, held a news conference in the state Capitol today urging the state Senate to pass legislation (H.B. 630, which would update and strengthen Pennsylvania’s equal pay law.
According to the U.S. Labor Department, in 2025, women in Pennsylvania were paid an average of 82.4% of what men were paid. This trails behind the national average and three out of six of Pennsylvania’s neighboring states.
The pay gap leads to less income for women to support their families. It also means women experience higher rates of poverty, lower financial earnings over a lifetime, and less money saved for retirement than their male colleagues. If Pennsylvania’s women were given equal pay for equal work, it is projected that the number of working women and single mothers living in poverty in the Commonwealth could be reduced by nearly 40%.
“Creating equal pay means increasing economic gains in the Commonwealth,” said Shusterman. “That is a commonsense win for everyone, but most importantly for women and their families. When you get paid less, that means less money for household expenses, retirement, or children’s clothing and food.”
"I’ve made fair and equitable pay my number one issue in the legislature. I’ve been fighting alongside my colleagues in SEIU and my colleagues in the legislature to raise the minimum wage and make wages fair and transparent,” state Rep. Roni Green, D-Phila., said. “To Senate Majority Leader Pittman: I implore you to commit to equal pay for equal work, I implore you to help us raise the minimum wage, and I implore you to give Pennsylvania’s working families the resources they need. We’re doing the work in the House – we need the Senate to do their job."
“The wage gap is real, and it’s well past time we did something about it,” O’Mara said. “I was raised by a single mom, and I know how much this bill will lift families, children, and working Pennsylvanians. This needs to happen in 2026.”
“The first Equal Pay Day was recognized in 1996 – that was 30 years ago! Thirty years is too long to wait for pay equity,” Speaker of the House Joanna McClinton said. “Yet here we are in 2026, still waiting on Senate Republican leaders to act, so our sisters, daughters, and nieces can receive the paycheck they have earned.”
To combat the pay gap, Shusterman introduced H.B. 630. The legislation would prohibit employers from paying workers less because of their gender, race, or ethnicity and protect employees from retaliation in any wage discrimination matters. Additionally, the bill would curtail the practice by prospective employers of using salary history in pay-setting decisions for new employment, as this has been shown to negatively affect pay as workers move from job to job.
The bill passed the House on May 5, 2025. Since then, the bill has been referred to the Senate Labor and Industry Committee, where it currently sits without a scheduled vote at this time.