The Equal Pay Act (the Act) of 1972 made it a requirement that men and women be paid the same for the same job. No one disputes that this is fair.
Amendments to the Act in 2020 (the “2020 Amendments”) added structure to simplify arguments being made to compare one occupation with alleged discrimination to another occupation.
This was based on lofty ideals, but critics argue that the claims used circular reasoning: women earned less, according to arbitrary comparisons, therefore they were undervalued.
The recent Amendments to the Act (the “2025 Amendments”) now require strong proof of systemic sex-based undervaluation within a continuous 70% female workforce.
Previously, a historic 60% women test, at some earlier point, was all that was needed.
Groups of men have never been allowed to make a claim, no matter how grievous the discriminatory pay might be.
Shouldn’t it have been obvious the 2020 Amendments were going to lead to a free-for-all? Yet, they were passed unanimously, and there was no concern raised by the media either.
