--- title: Equal Pay for Women: What Happened to the 1963 Equal Pay Act? description: The act, signed into law on June 10, 1963, was at first "'little noted nor long remembered" canonical: https://time.com/3906992/1963-equal-pay-act/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-10T14:30:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:45:17.276Z article:section: History og:title: Equal Pay for Women: What Happened to the 1963 Equal Pay Act? og:description: 'Many women prove reluctant to take on heavy responsibility' og:url: https://time.com/3906992/1963-equal-pay-act/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltba19c8745ee84e59/698852caf887dc7ab0e90bfe/esther-p.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Esther Peterson og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Equal Pay for Women: What Happened to the 1963 Equal Pay Act? twitter:description: 'Many women prove reluctant to take on heavy responsibility' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltba19c8745ee84e59/698852caf887dc7ab0e90bfe/esther-p.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How TIME Once Mansplained Why Equal Pay for Women Wouldn't Work > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: A History Of The Minimum Wage [Watch (HLS stream): A History Of The Minimum Wage](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/KFNoRaXc.m3u8) (3:56)  _Published 2014-02-28. See who raised the minimum wage and when throughout history._  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jun 10, 2015 2:30 PM UTC  Esther Peterson, center, on Oct. 20, 1966 Esther Peterson, center, on Oct. 20, 1966 Lowell Georgia—Post Archive / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jun 10, 2015 2:30 PM UTC When President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law on this day, June 10, in 1963, it seemed like workplace equality was on its way. “It is a first step,” the President [said](http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9267) during the signing. “It affirms our determination that when women enter the labor force they will find equality in their pay envelopes.” The [act](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/epa.cfm) had been drafted by Esther Peterson, head of the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor. It prohibited employers who were subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (under which the new law fell) from paying employees differently, on the basis of gender, for work that required “equal skill, effort, and responsibility.” In a sadly-prescient feat of mansplaining in 1964, TIME [predicted](http://time.com/vault/issue/1964-03-20/page/91/) why the law was unlikely to have the desired effect: --- > “” --- TIME was right about the law’s impact, if not the cause. When the magazine took stock of the act’s legacy in 1974, the wage gap at the time—women earned 60 cents on the dollar—was exactly the same as it was when Kennedy signed the law. “Equal pay for equal work is a familiar slogan of the women’s lib movement,”[ the story began.](http://time.com/vault/issue/1974-06-17/page/102/) “It has also been the law of the land for large companies for a decade, but a law that was little noted nor long remembered.” The fact was, the law—along with other anti-discrimination laws passed in the intervening years—had not really been put to the test. In 1974, the Supreme Court decided in _Corning Glass Works v. Brennan_ that the factory in question had broken the law by hiring only men for the higher-paid night shifts, and then women were owed back pay for the money they might have earned in that role. The TIME story cited several other examples of the 1963 law finally creating change: two cases in which AT&T had settled with employees, a steel plant facing a lawsuit, an instance in which Rutgers University was providing back pay to the tune of $375,000. The pay gap has narrowed since then–women made 78 cents on the dollar as of 2013, [according to](https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/04/14/five-facts-about-gender-pay-gap) the White House—but the law’s aim, clearly, remains unreached. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3906992/1963-equal-pay-act/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3906992/1963-equal-pay-act/"},"headline":"How TIME Once Mansplained Why Equal Pay for Women Wouldn't Work","datePublished":"2015-06-10T14:30:52.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:45:17.276Z","description":"'Many women prove reluctant to take on heavy responsibility'","url":"https://time.com/3906992/1963-equal-pay-act/","keywords":["Economy","Living","feminism","Money","Careers","Law"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltba19c8745ee84e59/698852caf887dc7ab0e90bfe/esther-p.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltba19c8745ee84e59/698852caf887dc7ab0e90bfe/esther-p.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Esther Peterson","caption":"Esther Peterson","creditText":"Lowell Georgia—Post Archive / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/economy/","name":"Economy"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3906992/1963-equal-pay-act/","name":"How TIME Once Mansplained Why Equal Pay for Women Wouldn't Work"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"A History Of The Minimum Wage","description":"See who raised the minimum wage and when throughout history.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/KFNoRaXc/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-02-28T17:21:00.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/KFNoRaXc.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3906992/1963-equal-pay-act/","duration":"PT3M56S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3906992/1963-equal-pay-act/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```