Equal Pay Act Of 1963 Research Paper

The Equal Pay Act Of 1963

Rita Silva

University of California, Los Angeles

Introduction

The wage structure of all too many segments of American industry has been based on an ancient but outmoded belief that a man, because of his role in society, should be paid more than a woman even though his duties are the same. (Corning Glass Works v. Brennan., 1963)

In 1963 one out of three workers were a woman. There were 25 million women employed and the pay for the average woman worker was 60 percent of each dollar man earned, and their number was rising faster than the number of men in the labor force. United States economy, needed women’s labor, but those women were not earning enough money to care for their children and

However, it was not until 1963 that Congress was able to pass The Equal Pay Act. The World War II, and the widespread men enlisted pushed the women into the workforce in unprecedented numbers. Concerned with filling in those jobs left by male workers in the munition industry, the government aimed campaigns to recruit female workers. A song titled "Rosie the Riveter," written by John Jacob Loeb and Redd Evans, was released in the early months of 1943. The lyrics described exactly the type of women the government wanted to recruit: "She's a part of the assembly line, she's making history, working for victory, Rosie the Riveter” (Loeb & Evans,

Many representatives had specific objections. The opponents argued that comparability would prove virtually impossible to determine. Their biggest objection was the language of the key clause, requiring "equal pay” for “comparable work”. Proponents of the bill argued that the comparable worth theory was the belief that “when jobs filled mostly by women are judged comparable to jobs filled mostly by men, wages for both should be the same” (Pagan, 2012). However, in order to facilitate its process, Representative Katharine St. George (R-N.Y.) amended it to "equal work". During the hearings that took place in March 1962, debating on the measure, however, no one spoke against it on the House floor (Harrison, 1989, p.