Working women and the Lilly Ledbetter Act: a case study on misleading rhetoric of equal pay

Since the passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the wage gap in the United States has only decreased by eighteen cents; signaling that the battle over fair pay for women has gone on for too long. I argue that the neoliberal rhetoric around equal pay has to change to an intersectional approach where women can make legal claims based on many experiences of discrimination. I use the Lilly Ledbetter Paycheck Fairness Act as a case study to examine the history of equal pay in the United States and to provide recommendations on the future of equal pay

Pay Equity: Legislative and Legal Developments

[Excerpt] The persistence of gender-based wage disparities—commonly referred to as the pay or wage gap—has been the subject of extensive debate and commentary. Congress first addressed the issue more than four decades ago in the Equal Pay Act of 1963, mandating an “equal pay for equal work” standard, and addressed it again the following year in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Collection of compensation data and elimination of male/female pay disparities are also integral to Labor Department enforcement of Executive Order 11246 (initially issued by President Lyndon Johnson), which mandates nondiscrimination and affirmative action by federal contractors. During the last several decades, initiatives to strengthen and expand current federal remedies available to victims of unlawful sex-based wage discrimination have been taken up in Congress. This report begins by presenting data trends in earnings for male and female workers and by discussing explanations that have been offered for the differences in earnings. It next discusses the major laws directed at eliminating sex-based wage discrimination as well as relevant federal court cases. The report closes with a description of pay equity legislation that has been considered or enacted by Congress in recent years

Is Prior Salary a Factor Other Than Sex? An Approach to Resolve the Ongoing Debate

I. Introduction II. Background … A. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 ... 1. The Act’s Four Exceptions ... B. Supreme Court Interpretation of the Equal Pay Act ... 1. Corning Glass Works v. Brennan ... 2. Washington County v. Gunther III. Rizo v. Yovino ... A. Background ... B. Majority Opinion ... C. Concurring Opinions ... D. Certiorari and Supreme Court Opinion ... E. Circuit Split IV. Analysis ... A. Employers Face Uncertainty in Light of Rizo ... B. Courts Should Adopt the Middle-Ground Approach V. Conclusio

Mandatory Pay Transparency and Internal Wage Audits: Governmental Oversight to Bridge the Gender Pay Divide

The goal of equal pay, to ensure fairness in compensation, established in the mid-twentieth century has remained elusive. Today, women in the United States still earn 79 cents on the dollar. The lack of pay transparency prevents market forces from providing equal compensation for substantially similar work and permits discrimination to occur. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA) provides a litigation remedy to compensate victims of discrimination but this remedy, although initially successful in reducing the gap, has failed to close the divide. Instead of amending the EPA, an alternate solution to address this market failure includes mandatory pay audits and required pay transparency with government oversight

The Family Gap: Do Mothers Earn Less

“Women must work fifteen months and eight days to earn what men earn in a year (Lesley, 1999). In a society where women are often single mothers who must support both themselves and children, why would they get paid less than men for doing the same job? When John F. Kennedy passed the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which promised women equal pay for equal work, women earned only 58 cents for every dollar men earned. This pay gap is disappearing at a rate of about ten cents every twenty to thirty years (Leinwand, 1999). And more recently, President Clinton announced last year that the government would enforce equal-pay laws more diligently in 1999 and in the future. Employers were told to look more closely at their compensation policies and other possible sources of (unintentional) gender bias (Fitzer, 1999)

Gardner-Webb Hosts Panel Discussion for Women’s History Month

Women gained the right to vote in 1920, the Equal Pay Act became law in 1963, and the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964. How did these historical moments affect local women? To celebrate Women’s History Month and explore these topics and others, the Gardner-Webb Office of Multicultural Affairs is hosting, “Generational Panel: Exploring Women’s History Through Local Lives.”https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/gardner-webb-newscenter-archive/1098/thumbnail.jp

Equal Pay Acts: A Survey of Experience Under the British and American Statutes

The United States Congress passed the Equal Pay Act in 1963 as an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act. Its British parallel, the Equal Pay Act 19702, took effect at the very end of 1975 and was much amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. The five year delay between enactment and enforcement provided time for employers and labor unions to adjust to the new requirements. The drafters of the British statute were aware of the United States statute, and United States cases interpreting that act were relied on quite early in United Kingdom litigation. Now that the British statute has a decade of interpretation behind it, a sufficient body of data permits a meaningful comparison of the experience under these two statutes. This Article concentrates on the doctrinal development concerning conditions of employer liability and employer defenses under both the British and American interpretations of equal pay. The influence of Common Market law and other aspects of the environments in which these laws operate will emerge in that discussion. Since the European Community law structure will be unfamiliar to some readers, a brief overview is set out as the next portion of this introduction; it is compared in broad terms to the American federal structure. Because the equal value sections of the British law have thus far received only sketchy interpretation, that law is discussed in a separate section, following those dealing with comparisons between the United States statute and the pre-1984 British act

Time\u27s Up: Addressing Gender-Based Wage Discrimination in Professional Sports

Gender-based wage discrimination in professional sports is wide-spread. Female athletes, competing individually or as part of a team, are consistently paid substantially less than their male counterparts. To combat such discrimination and eliminate the gender pay gap, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act (“Act”) in 1963. While born of good intentions, the Act falls drastically short of its intended goal. Its restrictive language—specifically, its “same establishment” requirement—excludes separately owned teams. As most men’s and women’s professional sports teams are separately owned, their players are effectively barred from bringing wage-discrimination claims. This Note proposes two ways of addressing that issue: (1) eliminating the “same establishment” requirement or (2) adding a sports-specific provision treating separately owned teams as the same. After more than fifty years, it is time to finally close the pay gap. Time’s up

Graduating to a Pay Gap: The Earnings of Women and Men One Year After College Graduation

Nearly 50 years after the passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, women continue to earnless than men do in nearly every occupation.Because pay is a fundamental part of everyday life, enabling individuals to support themselves and their families, the pay gap evokes passionate debate. Although the data confirming the persistence of the pay gap are incontrovertible,the reasons behind the gap remain the subject ofcontroversy. Do women earn less because they make different choices than men do? Does discrimination play a role? What other issues might be involved?This report explores the pay gap between male and female college graduates working full time one year after graduation.You might expect the pay gap between men and women in this group of workers of similar age,education, and family responsibilities to be small or nonexistent. But in 2009 -- the most recent year for which data are available -- women one year out of college who were working full time earned, on average, just 82 percent of what their male peers earned. After we control for hours, occupation, college major, employment sector,and other factors associated with pay, the pay gap shrinks but does not disappear. About one third of the gap cannot be explained by any of the factors commonly understood to affect earnings, indicating that other factors that are more difficult to identify -- and likely more difficult to measure -- contribute to the pay gap