When the morning “bye, honey” hug has the wife heading out to work and the husband staying at home because he’s been laid off, the gap in pay between women and men becomes a family issue. If the wife had been laid off instead, the family income likely would have taken a smaller hit, because women in the U.S. still earn only 78 cents for every dollar that men earn. In Virginia, women average 77 percent of what men earn.