The Equal Pay Act of 1963, which is an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, is a federal law that requires employers to pay all employees equally for equal work, regardless of their gender. In other words, the act prohibits unequal pay for equal or substantially equal work performed by men and women in the same establishment who are performing under similar working conditions. Enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Equal Pay Act also bars employers from reducing the wages of either sex in order to comply with the law. The act makes no provisions as to wage discrimination based on race or national origin, addressing only the issue of sex-based wage discrimination and covering only situations involving substantially equal work. The Equal Pay Act applies to all employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, which means that virtually all employees are covered. However, in addition to the employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Equal Pay Act covers professional employees such as executives and managers and includes administrators and teachers in elementary and secondary schools.

In order to fully understand the Equal Pay Act, it is important to determine the definition of "equal work." Jobs do not have to be identical for them to be considered equal. The courts have ruled that two jobs are equal for the purposes of the Equal Pay Act when both require equal levels of skill, effort, and responsibility and are performed under similar conditions. Although there is a lot of room for interpretation, the focus of equal work should be on only the duties performed. Job titles, classifications, and descriptions may weigh into the determination, but they are not all that is considered.

Significant legal history of employment discrimination began to appear in the early 1960s. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 was established to fix pay contingent upon the job. The act has almost always been applied to situations in which women are being paid less than men for doing similar jobs. Indeed, the law was passed to help rectify the problems faced by women workers because of sex discrimination in employment. The Equal Pay Act was closely followed by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits

discrimination in employment. However, the Equal Pay Act provides two advantages over Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. First, a lawsuit can be filed under the Equal Pay Act without first filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In addition, unlike Title VII, the Equal Pay Act does not require proof that the employer acted intentionally when discriminating, which makes an Equal Pay Act case easier to win.

When a worker establishes a pay disparity between a male and a female worker performing substantially equal jobs, the burden of proof shifts to the employer to justify its actions. Employers can defend themselves in one of four ways. The defenses that can be used are to show that the pay disparity was based on (1) a seniority system, (2) a merit system, (3) a system that determines wages based on the quantity or quality of work produced, or (4) some factor other than sex. However, an investigation occurs only if the employee can prove that the male and female are working in the same place, doing equal work, and receiving unequal pay because of their genders. In the event the employer is found guilty of violating the Equal Pay Act, back pay can be doubled if the employer's violation is determined to be willful.