Policy Background : Pay Fairness Act

According to statistics, there are disparities with pay in the workplace. Men are paid more in wages, comprehensive packages, and benefits than women who performed the same job responsibilities and roles in the workplace. The big question is why are women being unvalued? Since, this is a common practice in the workplace, is this fair to both genders and is this the most favorable outcome for the greatest number affected by this business practice? The Equal Pay Act of 1963 was passed to eliminate this type of discrimination based on sex with paying wages to employees, in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which pays, wages to employees of the opposite sex for equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions.

The gender pay gap is the difference between male and female earnings averaged in percentages. This difference in pay due to gender seems like it would be an obsolete practice in the twenty-first century, but it is real and is affecting millions of women and households in the country. In 2014, women working full time in the United States were paid 79 percent on average of what men were being paid, which is a gap of approximately 21 percent. This means that in the United States, females earned 94 cents on average to every dollar earned by males. According to one study by the Department of Labor’s Chief Economist, a typical 25-year-old woman working full time would earn $5,000 less over the course of her working career than a typical 25-year old man working in the same career. The reason why this pay gap exists does expand into other factors such as education, experience, the work being performed, qualifications, age, and ethnicity which are taken into account. The studies being conducted on the pay gap has economists verifying that discrimination is the best overall explanation and factor of the difference in pay between males and females.

An important federal employment law that all employees and employers should be aware of is the Equal Pay Act of 1963. As conversed in week nine of class discussion and video lecture, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 ends wage disparity based on sex. The main goal of this act was to ban discrimination in wages, benefits, and pensions based the gender of an employee in any place of employment. Women traditionally earned less than men for doing similar work. The United States has had a long history of knowledge of unequal pay between men and women, but it was not until around World War II that the problem arose and women started fighting for their rights on this issue. Women have tried passing several bills to help close this pay gap throughout the 1950’s, but ended up in failure.

Although it is not completely congress’s fault, change is not happening fast enough. The wage gap especially feels like it is moving at a turtle’s pace considering that in the past fifty years, the gap has only closed by twenty cents. It is ridiculous that the vast majority of employers feel like they can justify giving a woman less money for doing the exact same work that a man does. As a woman myself, I cannot fathom the of idea living in a country that stands for equality, yet not getting something as simple as equal wage. If it is not my gender, it is my ethnicity, or my religion, or anything that makes me unlike the common Christian, straight, white male. Congress should make an updated version of the document, not only to help the economy, but also to show that women are just as comparable to men, in all aspects of life. All in all, I am glad that the Equal Pay Act exists. It shows that congress did want to make change on this issue and it is a pivotal document for the civil rights movement of the 1960’s. I have come to learn that the Equal Pay Act, like any other U.S. document, is very important in the history of the U.S. and its impact, although not the biggest a document has done, should still be noted as positive for the

The Equal Pay Act set in the United States in 1963 is a labor law removes the wage inequality between men and women. This was a law that was specifically designed so that everyone is required to be paid the same amount. If a man and a woman are both working the same job title in the same work place there should not be any difference in the amount of pay received. The creation of this law was much more important than many people realized, because women were completing the same jobs but offered less money because of their gender and not quality of their work.The sole purpose of the equal pay is give women the same ability to make a living as a male, which closes the gender pay gap and keeps women for being paid 78 cents on a dollar. This pay act helps hold the employer accountable for making sure no one is not being compensated for things in their job description. In this paper I will speaking about The EEOC Sues Checkers and the Phillips V. Marietta Corp which are two specific cases that shows how people have been discriminated against because of their gender, this highlights the importance of The Equal Pay Act and what it actually stands for.

Women have made significant strides in society, proving themselves to be as capable as men in the workforce. However, while women are making equal contributions, men and women are not earning equal wages. Even though the Equal Pay Act was established in 1963, women continue to earn lower wages than men over half a century later. This inequality not only affects women as individuals but has a detrimental effect on the national economy. The gender wage gap in the United States should end because it is unjust; correcting it would have social and economic benefits for the U.S.

If an employer violates the Equal Pay Act, it is ethical that they go directly to court. In order to take a case under this Act, “the Secretary must show that an employer pays different wages to employees of opposite sexes” (FindLaw). Once the Secretary of Labor takes the case to court with all the information needed to

In 1942, the National War Labor Board urged employers to voluntarily equalize wage and salary rates for women to meet the wages of men. The Equal Pay act was signed in 1963, making it illegal for employers to pay unequal wages to men and women who hold the same job and do the same work, but this hasn’t changed much. Two landmark court cases served to strengthen and further define the Equal Pay Act: Schultz v. Wheaton Glass Co. (1970), U.S. Court of Appeals for

Recent trends toward certain state legislatures augmenting pay equity statutes have been deemed “sweeping changes” as compared to the stagnancy of federal pay equity statutes. New York and California enacted pay equity statutes at the end of 2015 that went into effect at the beginning of 2016. A session law enacted in Massachusetts in 2016 expands that state’s pay equity provisions in “impactful” and “noteworthy” ways in comparison to other states’ laws. These three states’ significant expansions of pay equity provisions can act as templates for Kansas, which limits employees bringing wage disparity claims to comparing themselves to their counterparts only if their work is “equal” and if they work at the same “establishment.”

Wage discrimination is embedded in our legal system. The ongoing battle for equal pay for women dates back to the Civil War. Throughout history, men seemed as the ideal-type of employers. Men were primary the breadwinners, and women who worked at the time only pinch in money oppose to having a stable salary equivalent to their male counterparts. The job roles such as nurses, teacher, and retail sales clerk became a “traditional female” occupations. In “Here’s the History of the Battle for Equal Pay for American Women,” Charlotte Alter points out a letter sent to the editor of the New York Times on February 1869. In this letter, the writer questioned why female government officials did not have similar pay to their male colleagues: ‘Very few persons deny the justice of the principle that equal work should command equal pay without regard to the sex of the laborer.’ Even in the late 19th century in which men had far more opportunities than women, people question the inequality in regards of the workplace. The

The law that I chose to do my research on is the Equal Pay Act of 1963. This states that “No employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section shall discriminate, within any establishment in which such employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions”(Article 1) This is practically saying that in this Act, the EPA requires that the employers may not pay lower wages to employees of one gender, than it pays to employees of the other gender. This law was signed into effect on June 10,1963 by President John F. Kennedy as part of his new frontier program. ( article 1) The main goal of this law was to let women get paid the same as men for the exact same work. I believe that women should have been able to receive the same amount of money before congress even decided this. If people were paid equally from the beginning I don’t think that we would have as many problems associated with gender equality.

Mike Honda once said, "Equal pay isn't just a women's issue; when women get equal pay, their family incomes rise and the whole family benefits." The wage gap between men and women is unjust and should not be existent. Women are being compensated less than men for doing the same amount of work based on their gender and ethnicity. In the U.S., women who work full-time are paid only eighty percent of what men are paid. Traditionalist men may not agree with equalizing men and women's wages, but that is not acceptable in this modern time. All people need to work together in order for the wage gap to be closed. Anything that could come from closing the pay gap between men and women is a positive. The pay gap between women should be closed because

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law, and now, over 50 years later, women are still not considered equals to men. The face that men are getting paid up to 4% higher than women when they are both doing the same exact job and have the same amount of experience is ridiculous. If you think that 4% is low, let me give you an example. If you are making 70,000 dollars in a job with a 4% gender gap, then a man is making 2,800 more dollars than you.

Article 23 (2) of the Declaration of Human Rights states that: Everyone, without discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. This right should be given to everyone at all times. The wage gap may be based on race, sex, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, or other things. “As of 2012, according to US Department of Labor, the gross US gender wage gap was an estimated 23%, meaning that female workers made an average of 77 cents for every one dollar made by male workers” (Gender Wage Gap). The Equal Pay Act of 1963 outlawed the payment of different wages for the same job on the basis of race. Then, in 1964, The 1964 Civil Rights Act forbade employment discrimination based on race, ethnicity, sex, or religion. Female workers are still being paid less money, for the same job, than their male counterparts.

Despite the fact that the Equal Pay Act has been law since 1963, many problems inevitably arise in the administration of equal pay laws (Fisher). It has been estimated that at this current slow rate of progression in closing the gender pay gap it will be 2068 by the time men and women’s wages are equalized. It is clear that the business case, as well as the legislative case, has a significant role to play (Commission Policy Report).