Honoring 60 Years of the Equal Pay Act and Advancing Pay Equity

Today is the 60th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, a law that laid the foundation to ensure that workers in this country receive equal pay for equal work, regardless of their sex, for doing substantially similar jobs. It was the first of many laws that protect workers from pay discrimination based on gender, race, age, disability, and more.

In 1963, women overall were paid only 59 cents for every dollar paid to men. Sixty years later, while we’ve had some progress in closing the gender pay gap, pay disparities persist. Today, women overall are paid 84 cents to every dollar paid to men – and this gap is even more pronounced for Black women, Native American women, Latinas, many Asian American women, and women with disabilities.

Gender and racial pay gaps reflect a combination of factors that lower women’s earnings over a lifetime. Women experience outright discrimination and, in 90 percent of occupations, they are paid less than men, on average. Women are less likely to participate in the workforce, or work as many hours as men, due to time spent on caregiving combined with the lack of affordable child care, paid family and medical leave, paid sick leave, and fair and predictable scheduling. Mothers may experience the compounding effects of discrimination, and lower work hours due to caregiving responsibilities, leading to a parental gender earnings gap, or “motherhood penalty.”

In fact, a recent published study funded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau found that mothers lose an average of $295,000 in employment-related costs over a lifetime due to providing unpaid care to minor children and older family members. Additionally, differences in jobs held by men and women may contribute to the gender pay gap. Jobs held primarily by women, such as nurses and teachers, tend to be undervalued and have low pay and few benefits. Conversely, women are underrepresented in higher paying jobs, such as engineers and electricians.

Pay disparities compound from paycheck to paycheck, resulting in lower annual earnings for women, especially women of color. In turn, lower earnings harm their ability to afford basic necessities like housing and child care and to build and sustain their families’ financial security. Also, it impacts their ability to save for an unexpected expense and save for retirement. Over a lifetime, women lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost earnings and retirement savings.

President Biden and Vice President Harris are committed to making progress to achieve pay equity and realize the vision of the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The following actions are some of the many steps the Administration is taking to tackle the drivers of gender and racial pay gaps.

To address pay discrimination and disparities that can follow workers from job-to-job, the Biden-Harris Administration is:

In recognition of the caregiving responsibilities that create challenges for working women and lower their earnings, the Administration is:

And, to improve women’s access to good-paying jobs and raise wages for their existing jobs, the Administration is: