Equal pay. It's the law of the land. So, why is it that working women still earn 76 percent of the earnings of working men? To use the rhetoric of today, if we are a nation of laws, how come we still have such wage disparities between men and women?

We talk a good game about how we value motherhood, but our actions and public policies don't reflect that value. Sixty percent of Utah mothers are in today's work force, many working out of necessity to make ends meet. Two years ago, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. signed a declaration, Equal Pay Day, pointing out the problems of equal pay for women and encouraging businesses to conduct an internal pay evaluation to ensure women are being paid fairly.

Ensuring all employers comply with the various equal-pay laws would help increase income and reduce poverty; rather than wasting time with more studies and special programs when some solutions seem obvious — carry out the intent of the equal-pay laws now on the books.

It's a tough life trying to balance work and home, but more and more it is part of trying to eke out a living today. In the past, extended families were there to help with child care. But in today's mobile society parents struggle to find affordable child care they can trust, which often is miles away. Working moms agonize over finding after-school supervision to avoid leaving older children home alone as latch-key kids. We take pride in saying we value the sanctity of motherhood and the role women play in maintaining strong families with healthy children — socially and physically. What we seem to have failed to realize and act upon is that as the world has changed, so has the role of children, men and women. Many women still have the same responsibilities but now have added another one — breadwinner. For women, there are no takeaways, only add-ons.

Today's families are under stress to make ends meet, and for many, poverty is just one major illness away. And while we like to believe in the importance of stay-at-home moms, the 60 percent the work force are not relieved of their "other duties." Talk about a guilt trip. They are usually the ones who have to leave work to take care of sick children, find affordable and caring child care and still continue all "other duties as assigned" — plumber, housekeeper, launderer, tutor and taxi driver.

Complaints regarding women earning less than men for similar jobs are valid, but current employment policies overlook other underlying reasons for the pay differences. One is that women are not as aggressive as men in negotiating beginning salaries and that they tend to trust the hiring system. The most pervasive hurdle is that women who take time out to raise a family leave a blank space in their resume and are unable to maintain continued employment as do their male counterparts. They lose out on promotion opportunities and must then start the career ladder all over again. The unintended result is that we punish women for having children. How consistent is that for a culture that promotes strong families?

Let me propose a simple solution. Let's mirror laws giving service veterans preference in job selection to women who have taken time to have children. Let them have first crack at a job and/or reinstate them in their previous job. And how about providing incentives for employers to do so? Let's put our policies where our values are.

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Utah native John Florez has founded several Hispanic civil rights organizations and has served on the staff of Sen. Orrin Hatch and on more than 45 state, local and volunteer boards. He also has been deputy assistant secretary of labor. E-mail: jdflorez@comcast.net