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Equal Pay Political History in the U.S.

Post-war (1865 - 1877)

In February 1869, a letter was written to the editor of the New York Times regarding the equal pay of hale clerks within the government. At this point, the U.S. Treasury Department had around 500 women employed for their services but we're only paid half the wages as their male colleagues. In the author's words, "Very few persons deny the justice of the principle that equal work should command equal pay without regard to the sex of the laborer." This was one of the first notable attempts for equal pay for women workers in the country - stirring enough attention to cause the writing of an appropriations bill that was passed by the House of Representatives in 1870 but eventually denied by the Senate.

The Gilded Age & Progressive Era (1877–1911)

With the dawn of the Progressive Era in response to the rapid economic growth in the United States, equal pay advocacy had the opportunity to be discussed more frequently due to the strengthening of unions throughout the country. One event that stands out was the Western Union Telegraph Company strike in 1883, where operators protested against working conditions, with equal pay for male and female employees being one the demands. Despite public favor for the strike, it ultimately ended unsuccessfully.

However, this was a minor setback in the political fight against the gender pay gap, mainly due to the large support of progressive movements during this period. Public support allowed for more advocacy and even occasional coverage from some news outlets. During this period, there was a significantly larger amount of male workers. Furthermore, due to the booming economy, many men sought to find work with higher wages. This in turn, caused the education industry to hold a female majority, with the percentage of female teachers in U.S. public schools rising 61% in the 1870's. At this moment in time, the average pay discrepancy for women was calculated to be 69¢ on the dollar. The given justification typically was that teachers were paid by their grade level, meaning elementary school teachers (which had a higher proportion of women) would have lower pay. This battle for equal payment was incited in 1907 when the Interborough Association of Women Teachers attended a state legislature meeting (the first time women spoke at a legislature meeting) to voice their opposition to gender discrimination and unequal pay for teachers. Ellen T. O'Brien, the Treasurer for the association, spoke to the discrepancy. By 1911, after a grueling fight with the Board of Education, the state of New York, with the push of newly elected mayor William Gaynor, was able to pass the "Equal Pay Bill".

War & Equal Pay (1912 - 1945)

With the beginning of World War I in 1914, the U.S. demand for male soldiers led to a necessity for female workers to keep the economy moving. The government subsequently released a list of jobs for women with the hope of driving male workers into jobs that support the war and not those that are "women's work". However, with the lack of male workers, female workers were in a position of bargaining and utilized this effort as an opportunity to receive equal pay as the men that previously worked in those jobs, with the National Labor Board stating, "If it shall become necessary to employ women on work ordinarily performed by men, they must be allowed equal pay for equal work.”. The influx of female workers is when equal pay was not only an outcome of supply and demand but a social construction.

World War II is a period that is notably marked as a successful period for women in the working world. However, this was short lived around the beginning of the war. War-time shortages allowed for more female workers to enter industrial trades, lowering inter-gender segregation by 30 to 40 percent. The National Industrial Conference Board has been frequently cited as reasoning that the war and subsequent influx of jobs allowed for the pay gap to be bridged and women's relative earnings to be increased. However, economists have recently called this data into question due to its lack of weighting over its 20 year span. When reexamining, industrial wages for women saw raises in relative earnings of around 5 to 10 percent, but a drop in 18 percent for non wartime professions.

For women, the increased allowance in female workers served as a political win, but the gender pay gap still was a pervasive issue.

The Late 20th Century (1960-1999)

While some politicians advocated for equal pay following the war, the sheer return of male veterans from the war left the dynamic to shift towards a more 'traditional' level as it were, with the wage gap losing attention as the large expectation was for women to stay in the home once again. This began to shift during the beginning of the 1960's approached and advocates once again began to lobby for equal wages among genders. Specifically through combined activism from the President’s Commission on the Status of Women and the Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau, the gender pay gap began to gain more traction in the public light, pushing then president John F. Kennedy to sign the Equal Pay Act in 1963, possibly the most significant victory in the active fight for equal wages. This would be one of the first marks in the Civil Rights Movement and is considered by many activists to be the first legislation towards correcting this disparity. Common criticisms for this bill came from conservative representatives with stances that women typically cost more than male workers and the government should not meddle in the affairs of businesses. At this period in history, women on average were making 59 cents on the dollar compared to white men.

President John F. Kennedy signs the Equal Pay Act in 1963.

Following the signing of the bill, despite the new illegality of gender pay discrimination, the gap hovered around 40 to 43 percent until the late 1970's. By this time, women have had begun to bridge the labor market gap and educational attainment gap, with several universities becoming co-ed during this time. Furthermore, women began to enter into professions that previously were considered for men: professions that tended to pay higher wages. On the political side, the U.S. saw two specific bills that furthered the equal pay cause: The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 and The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. By 1990, the gender pay gap for the first time shrunk under 30 percent (28.4%).

The New Millennium (2000-Present)

Following the developments in the 1990's, the gender pay gap slowly and incrementally decreased over time with previous disenfranchisement decreasing such as educational attainment and labor market experience. However, a significant portion of the gap still remained economically unexplained and mainly has been attributed to gender discrimination. By 2010, attempts were made in the Supreme Court to strip protections of equal pay law but were countered by President Barack Obama and his first bill signed into law: the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009, which resorted previous protections.

Barack Obama and Lily Ledbetter

Gender Pay Ratio until 2008

After 2010, legislation was written to make retaliation against employees who discuss their wages illegal, but was struck down by the Senate in 2014. With today's job market, the gap has been argued to be around 81 to 98 cents on the dollar, depending on which base comparison is used.