Equal Pay Act

By: Bobby howard III

In 1942, Congresswoman Winifred C. Stanley from Buffalo, N.Y. introduced H.R. 5056,
forbidding discrimination in pay on account of sex, which did not pass at the time. The issue
stuck around until 1963, when Congress passed the Equal Pay Act as an amendment to the Fair
Labor Standards Act to "prohibit discrimination on account of sex in the payment of wages by
employers. It was signed in law by John F. Kennedy on June 10, 1963 as part of his new
Frontier program. Congress included within the amendment a policy statement and briefly
described the problems it was intended to solve. Congress prohibited sex discrimination on the
bases that 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.
In the House of Representatives, many Representatives voiced their concern that the
Equal Pay Act should act as the starting point for establishing pay parity for women. Following
the enactment of the Equal Pay Act, Congress took two actions which broadened the scope of
federal protection against wage discrimination on the basis of sex. First, Congress passed Title
VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. By including sex as a form of discrimination, Title VII
expanded the protection of women from employment discrimination, to include almost all
employees working for employers with fifteen or more employees. Second, Congress expanded
the Equal Pay Act coverage to professionals and other white-collar employees. For the first nine
years after the Equal Pay Act was passed, the requirement of equal pay for equal work did not
extend to persons employed in an executive, administrative or professional capacity. This meant

that the Equal Pay Act exempted white-collar women from the protection of equal pay for
identical jobs.

Penalties for violating this act usually result

in a fine and sometimes imprisonment for a short
amount of time. Repeated violations will have
fines and prison time increase with each violation.
A modern example of a violation of the Equal pay
Act is When Heidi Wilson was promoted to
manager of the Citicorp service center in 2009, she
was upset that she didn't get a raise or a bonus
even though her male co workers made more than
her. She was repeatedly passed over for a raise and
later fired without a severance check. She later sued and won in court a total of $340,000 in back
pay.
The Equal Pay Act has had a tremendous
impact on on the work force and wages of woman.
Women's salaries in relation to mens have risen since
the Equal Pay Act was passed, from 62% of mens
earnings to 80% in 25 years. Nonetheless, The goals
of the Equal Pay Act will not be meet until pay parity
between men and woman has been achieved in full. In recent years more acts have been passed
to reach full pay parity. The full effects of these acts are still unknown but the Equal Pay Act
continues to close the gap in wages.

References
http://www.tampabay.com/news/tampa-woman-wins-lawsuit-against-citicorp-for-paydiscrimination/1225359
http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/epa.cfm
https://web.archive.org/web/20120626131413/http://archive.eeoc.gov/epa/anniversary/epa40.html
http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/documents/EqualityAct/equalpaycode.pd
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