Equal Pay is not just fairness, it’s about creating opportunity for better lives and truly valuing the contributions of a person by their skill and loyalty. Although we’re almost two decades in the new millennium, we’re still combating a 20th-century problem: paying women and minorities equally for the same work done by their white male counterparts. Louisiana has no Equal Pay Act, no law on the books to require that men and women be paid equally for equal work. And they are not. For every dollar a man makes, a white woman makes $0.69, while an African American woman makes $0.48 and a Latina makes $0.52. (Poverty Driver #9) Equal pay discrepancies adversely impact Louisiana women, their families, and the economy as a whole. As more households become dual-income, or with females as heads of households, how can we allow for this to happen?