HARRISBURG -- Pennsylvania and the nation must do more to ensure that women workers receive pay equal to men for the same work, state government leaders said today.

A rally on pay equity at the Capitol featured Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll, state Sen. Jane Orie, state Rep. Katharine Watson, a dozen other female legislators -- and three male lawmakers.

Ms. Orie, R-McCandless, said that, according to a study group called the National Committee on Pay Equity, women who worked full-time, year-round made, on average, only 59 cents for every dollar earned by men in 1963.

That was the year the federal Equal Pay Act was enacted, which was supposed to close or erase that disparity. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was also supposed to eliminate such salary inequities.

And yet, Ms. Orie said, in 2006 women still earned only 77 cents on the dollar compared to men doing the same full-time job.

"We've only progressed by 18 cents over more than 40 years,'' said Sen. Michael Stack, D-Philadelphia. "This pay disparity doesn't just hurt women themselves, it also hurts their families.''

The Pay Equity study also said that over a lifetime of work, a female high school graduate earns about $700,000 less than a male with similar schooling; a female college graduate earns $1.2 million less than her male counterpart; and a woman who completes study at a professional or graduate school earns $2 million less.

Speakers at the rally said that one reason -- or excuse -- for women's pay being lower than men's is because many women take a few months or years off from their careers or jobs to have children and raise their families, so that when they return to work their pay isn't as high as some of the males who have stayed on the job during that time.

Despite the documentation that's already available about the salary differential, Ms. Orie has introduced a resolution in the Senate (and Ms. Watson in the House) calling for a General Assembly study panel called the Joint State Government Commission to analyze wages and report back in November about what steps Pennsylvania can take to narrow the gap.