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Equal Pay Act Of 1963 Essay

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Equal Pay Act of 1963
President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law in June of 1963. President Kennedy cited, “the unconscionable practice of paying female employees less wages than male employees for the same job”, (Women’s Pay Equity, 2014). “This measure adds to our laws another structure basic to democracy,” he stated. “It will add protection at the working place to women — the same rights at the working place in a sense that they have enjoyed at the polling place” (Women’s Pay Equity, 2014). This act was one of the first federal anti-discriminatory laws created to address differences in wage based on gender or sex. The act required equal pay for men and women performing substantially the same work. This act made it illegal …show more content…

(United States National Park Service, 2016). Due to this, pay was determined by “comparing the worth and/or difficulty of the jobs” which resulted in heated debates, and concluded with the bill failing to pass (United States National Park Service, 2016). After the war ended, federal and civilian policies allowed employers to replace women workers with men and many companies would only hire men, even if the same companies hired women during the war (United States National Park Service, 2016). Companies that had hired women during the war reclassified their jobs and lowered their pay. This resulted in even more discriminatory issues as newspapers published identical job openings with differing salaries depending on sexual orientation (United States National Park Service, 2016). As a result, “the percentage of women working outside the home dropped to less than 28% of the total workforce” (United States National Park Service, 2016). Throughout the remainder of the 1950s, “several bills seeking equal pay for women were introduced in Congress, but all failed to move forward. By 1960, there were approximately 25 million women working outside the home. While women again accounted for 37% of the total workforce, they only earned an average of 59 cents on the dollar compared to men” (United States National Park Service,

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