I AM delighted today to approve the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which prohibits arbitrary discrimination against women in the payment of wages. This act represents many years of effort by labor, management, and several private organizations unassociated with labor or management, to call attention to the unconscionable practice of paying female employees less wages than male employees for the same job. This measure adds to our laws another structure basic to democracy. It will add protection at the working place to the women, the same rights at the working place in a sense that they have enjoyed at the polling place.
John F. Kennedy June 10, 1963
No employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section [section 206 of title 29 of the United States Code] shall discriminate, within any establishment in which such employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on jobs[,] the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions, except where such payment is made pursuant to (i) a seniority system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or (iv) a differential based on any other factor other than sex
text of said Act
Management, professional, and related occupations............................ 1,256 923
Business and financial operations occupations.....................................1,227 914
Human resources, training, and labor relations specialists.....................1,101 874
Medical scientists........................................................................... 1,227 952
etc., etc., etc.
you know, for every dollar a man makes a woman makes 63 cents. now, fifty years ago that was 62 cents. so, with that kind of luck, it'll be the year 3,888 before we make a buck.
Laurie Anderson
Just
thinkin', is all. Ignore it.