Equal Pay Act of 1963

The Equal Pay Act of 1963

Acronyms (colloquial)	EPA
Enacted by	the 88th United States Congress
Citations
Public law	Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States) 88–38
Statutes at Large	77 Stat. 56
Codification
Acts amended	Fair Labor Standards Act
Titles amended	29
U.S.C. sections amended	206
Legislative history
Introduced in the Senate as S. 1409 by Patrick McNamara (D–MI)[1][2] Passed the House on May 23, 1963 (362–9) Signed into law by President John F. Kennedy on June 10, 1963
United States Supreme Court cases
Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, 417 U.S. 188 (1974) Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power v. Manhart, 435 U.S. 702 (1978) Northwest Airlines, Inc. v. Transport Workers, 451 U.S. 77 (1981) County of Washington v. Gunther, 452 U.S. 161 (1981) Arizona Governing Comm. for Tax Deferred Annuity and Deferred Compensation Plans v. Norris, 463 U.S. 1073 (1983)

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 is a United States labor law amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex (see gender pay gap). It was signed into law on June 10, 1963, by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program.^[3] In passing the bill, Congress stated that sex discrimination:^[4]

• depresses wages and living standards for employees necessary for their health and efficiency;
• prevents the maximum utilization of the available labor resources;
• tends to cause labor disputes, thereby burdening, affecting, and obstructing commerce;
• burdens commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce; and
• constitutes an unfair method of competition.

The law provides in part that "[n]o employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section [section 206 of title 29 of the United States Code] 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, except where such payment is made pursuant to (i) a seniority system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or (iv) a differential based on any other factor other than sex [...]."^[4]