CAMDEN, NJ – During the first week of Women’s History Month, Congressman Donald Norcross (NJ-01) – a member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee – hosted a conversation on Women in the Workforce: Raising Voices, Raising Pay with New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy, Rutgers University–Camden Chancellor Phoebe Haddon and New Jersey Assemblywoman Gabby Mosquera. (Click here to view or download photos. Click here to view the full video of the event.)

“It was enlightening to hear these three women share diverse stories about achievements in the workplace and provide suggestions on how we can move our state and country forward,” said Congressman Norcross. “Throughout the past year, many courageous women have been raising their voices – and I commend their bravery, honesty and resolve. Women must keep speaking up and speaking out to their representatives.”

Norcross added: “From advocating for equal pay to paid leave to affordable child care, women are speaking about policies that will lift up our families and lawmakers must listen and take action. In Congress, I’ll continue fighting to raise wages and raise up women and families.”

At Rutgers University–Camden, the three panelists told their personal stories, answered questions about facing gender discrimination and offered advice for students who will soon enter the workforce.

“I have never had one person say to me that I can’t do something and, by the way, if they said that I can’t do something, watch out because I can do it,” quipped First Lady Tammy Murphy.

“You need to give yourself an opportunity to experiment and imagine yourself in different roles,” said Chancellor Phoebe Haddon. “I migrated with my family from the South when I was about five years old. My father was a dentist and my mother was a ‘Hidden Figure’ who ran a NASA computer. It was the challenge of finding good jobs and good educational opportunities that drove my family to New Jersey. Later, my mother became a guidance counselor to show students that anyone could have a job and shape a path like she did.”

“Having support from family and friends allows women to do what we can do. Sadly, many women in New Jersey do not have that support,” said New Jersey Assemblywoman Gabby Mosquera, a new mother and Chair of the Women and Children Committee. “Everyone has the right to the opportunity to have a shot at the America Dream and, as a legislator, it’s my job to help each other to ensure the success of women and families.”

Congressman Norcross and all of the panelists agree that we need to immediately raise the minimum wage and stand up against pay inequity.

“In 1963, President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, which was intended to prohibit wage discrimination based on sex. Yet fifty-five years later, serious disparities persist. Women today earn, on average, only 82 cents for every dollar a man earns. For African-American women, it’s just 58 cents, and if you’re a Latina, it’s only 43 cents,” said First Lady Tammy Murphy. “With Governor Murphy and Lt. Governor Sheila Oliver, I am committed to securing for every woman in New Jersey the right to earn her fair share: 100 cents on the dollar. In 2018, we must do better, for all the women of the great state of New Jersey and their families.”

Norcross has been holding conversations like this one around New Jersey’s First District. In the past year, he held a roundtable on gun safety in schools in Blackwood, a discussion with young professionals in Oaklyn, an inaugural summit on women in the workforce in Haddonfield, an event on millennials at work in Glassboro, and a community conversation on the disease of addiction in Washington Township.

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