Comissioners to offer equal pay to women

Franklin County commissioners officially are supporting equal pay for equal work.

“This is just another effort to make us a good, quality employer,” Commissioner Marilyn Brown said Thursday. “And it’s the right thing to do.”

Commissioners are expected to approve a resolution Tuesday to become the 100th organization to adopt a Columbus Women’s Commission effort to shrink pay gaps and other gender-based inequities. In the U.S., women are reported to earn an average 80.5 cents for every $1 a man makes for the same work in 2016, according to a 2017 U.S. Census Bureau report.

The move comes during national Women’s History Month. It also comes generations after the 1963 Equal Pay Act, which was supposed to outlaw different wages for the same work by gender or race.

About 1,400 Franklin County employees report to the commissioners. Their jobs and paychecks help support their children and families, Brown said. Almost half of the U.S. workforce is female.

“It’s important,” Brown added, “because we are a large employer in town and want to be an employer of choice. We want to be an inclusionary workforce.”

Commissioners have made similar moves in the past. Last year, they adopted a resolution raising the minimum hourly wage for its workers to $13.69, almost twice the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. The Ohio minimum wage is $8.30 per hour.