The Equal Pay Act of 1963 prohibited sex-based wage differences for substantially equal work in the United States.
The law amended the Fair Labor Standards Act and required employers to provide equal pay to men and women performing substantially equal jobs in the same workplace. The comparison concerns skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions rather than job titles alone.
The Act permits differences based on seniority, merit, quantity or quality of production, or another factor other than sex. It is therefore not a general minimum-wage statute: it addresses discriminatory pay differences. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 also prohibits employment discrimination, including sex discrimination under Title VII, but the Equal Pay Act is the specific federal law named for equal compensation.