House Bill 770, and Senate Bill 2451 contain language that allows employees to have legal recourse if they are paid less or more than their counterparts in the opposite sexe for the same job. Before the legislative session ends this week, a combination of both bills will be likely to be adopted into law. The Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable (a Black women’s organization) criticized the proposals in January. It said that they had “glaring flaws” and would allow employers to legally pay women less. The most recent data on the Southern United States’ gender pay gap can be viewed here: WATCH: Black Women’s Roundtable discusses equal wages bills. In Mississippi, there’s a 22.6% disparity in the annual earnings of full-time working women and men. This also means that the average annual salary is $9,755 less. While there are smaller percentages of pay gaps in some places, they have monetary differences that are significantly greater than Mississippi. In dollars, the gender pay gap for Virginia is $12,442. However, since women and men in Mississippi make on average less than Virginians, this smaller gender pay gap still results in a larger percentage change. READ MORE: * Mississippi Legislature passes equal pay bill. Advocates call it terrible. * How will the Southern women fare in comparison to men in 2021, according to some experts?