It’s almost embarrassing that we even have to confront an issue such as gender wage disparity in this day and age. We should be years, if not decades, past this unjust practice and not still worming out the last vestiges of its insidious presence in our economic systems.

Thankfully, our conscientious legislators on Beacon Hill are tirelessly working towards fine tuning and asserting laws that will assure women an equal day’s pay for an equal day’s work.

The Massachusetts Equal Pay Act, which has been well supported on the Hill, was introduced and championed by our own Senator Patricia Jehlen, along with Representative Jay Livingstone of Boston. The bill is now moving forward to the House of Representatives.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a woman working full time in Massachusetts earns 82 cents for every dollar paid to a man in Massachusetts. A report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research projects that the gender wage gap in Massachusetts will not close on its own until 2058.

This is way to long for our daughters and granddaughters to wait for wage equity. We salute the hard work of these legislators and support their efforts in this most noble of causes.