Equal Pay Act (EPA) No Thesis

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Representative Rosa DeLauro first introduced an identical bill in the House of Representatives on the same day. These Congresswomen have introduced identical legislation in their respective chambers annually since 2005. The Act was most recently introduced on March 6, 2007. (Absoluteastronomy.com, n.d.)

The Congress did not ignore the EPA's economic consequences on the salaries and employment opportunities for both men and women. First, as an amendment of the FLSA, the EPA is part of the same legislative structure that houses the federal minimum wage laws. The EPA acts as a wage equalizer between men and women for equal jobs, and has the potential of acting as a price floor on the salaries of men or women for particular jobs. As such, the EPA had the potential of causing some of the same problems observed by minimum wage laws: unemployment, and additional discrimination. (Absoluteastronomy.com, n.d.)

Litigation

From the EEOC's initial enforcement of the Equal Pay Act in 1979 through the end of May 2003, the Commission has filed approximately 364 lawsuits under the EPA and under EPA/Title VII alleging unlawful discrepancies in wages based on gender. The Commission has resolved 359 of these suits obtaining over $28 million in monetary relief for charging parties and securing significant injunctive and remedial relief. (EEOC, 2003)

During the 1970s two court cases further defined the Equal Pay Act of 1963. Schultz v. Wheaton Glass Company was heard by the Third Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, and Corning Glass Works v. Brennan was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. In Schultz v. Wheaton, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals determined that jobs do not need to be identical but rather substantially equal in order to be protected under the Equal Pay Act. (Encyclopedia of Business, 2nd ed., 1999)

Furthermore, in 1974 the Supreme Court determined in Corning Glass Works v.

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Brennan that women could not be paid less simply because they would work at a lower pay rate than men. At the same time the Supreme Court confirmed the constitutionality of the Equal Pay Act.

Equal Pay Today? An Update variety of explanations for a persistent wage gap have been offered. One is that older women are factored into the wage gap equation, and many of these women from an older generation work in jobs still subject to the attitudes and conditions of the past. In contrast, the rates for young women coming of age in the 1990s reflect women's social and legal advances. In 2005, for example, women under 25 working full-time earned 93.2% of men's salaries compared to those 25 and older, who earned 79.4% of what men made. (Brunner, n.d.)

Does this imply that once the oldest generation of women has retired the wage gap will shrink considerably? Perhaps. But even the narrow wage gap of 92.1% that applies to women under 25 looks less rosy when you consider commentator Katha Pollitt's take on it:

Young men and women have always had earnings more compatible than those of their elders: starting salaries are generally low, and do not accurately reflect the advantages that accrue, or fail to accrue, over time as men advance and women stay in place, or as women in mostly female kinds of jobs reach the end of characteristically short career paths." (the Nation, April 14, 1997)

Women have made enormous progress in the workforce since the Equal Pay Act, but the stubborn fact remains that four-and-a-half decades later the basic goal of the act has not been realized. (Brunner, n.d.).....

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