Which U.S. federal law requires covered employers to provide equal pay for equal work regardless of sex?

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 requires covered employers to provide equal pay for substantially equal work regardless of sex.

The Act amended the Fair Labor Standards Act and was signed by President John F. Kennedy on June 10, 1963. It targets sex-based differences in wages for jobs requiring substantially equal skill, effort, and responsibility performed under similar working conditions.

The law does not require identical job titles or identical duties. Employers may justify some pay differences through factors such as seniority, merit, production quantity or quality, or another factor other than sex. The comparison concerns substantially equal work, not merely jobs located in the same workplace.

The Equal Pay Act is often confused with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII prohibits broader employment discrimination, including sex discrimination, while the Equal Pay Act specifically addresses sex-based wage differences. Later laws, including the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, changed related enforcement rules but did not replace the 1963 statute.