Equal Pay Act of 1963

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA), signed by President John F. Kennedy, came into effect on June 11, 1964. It was designed to reduce the pay differential between men and women for substantially equal work within the same organization. The EPA is part of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended. This act, administered and enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, prohibits all employers from wage discrimination between men and women in the same establishment who are performing under similar working conditions. If there is a pay differential, the employer must be able to demonstrate that it is based on seniority, a well-defined merit system, a system that measures the quantity or quality of productive output, or some factor other than ...