The federal Equal Pay Act prohibits sex-based wage discrimination between women and men in the same establishment who perform substantially equal work under similar conditions. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s statutory page is the source for the law’s text; it is not an announcement that 40 states enacted a new common amendment. Equal Pay Act
A separate Bureau of Labor Statistics report describes earnings across the workforce. In 2024, women employed full time in wage-and-salary jobs had median usual weekly earnings of $1,043, compared with $1,261 for men. Women’s median was 83% of men’s median. BLS earnings report
The BLS measure does not compare people doing identical jobs in a single establishment. Its populations include different occupations, ages and employment circumstances. The report also describes variation by age, illustrating that an overall median ratio does not summarize every group’s experience.
The legal rule and the earnings statistic answer different questions. One addresses prohibited wage discrimination under a federal statute; the other summarizes observed earnings in a defined labor-market population. Neither establishes the earlier release’s alleged multistate legislation, implementation date or disclosure mandate.
Archive note: the earlier 40-state enactment and attributed remarks were not substantiated.