The Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R.7)

Congressional Democrats introduced legislation Thursday to guarantee women and men are paid equally for the same jobs — one of several gender equity priorities backed by President Joe Biden.

The Paycheck Fairness Act is co-sponsored by every Democrat in Congress as well as two House Republicans. It cleared the House on a largely party-line vote in 2019, but wasn’t considered in the Senate.

“As workers across the country struggle to make ends meet amid this economic crisis, women cannot afford to wait any longer to get equal pay,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), a chief co-sponsor of the bill, said in a statement. Murray is in line to take the gavel of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The legislation would build on the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which extended the time period workers could sue for discriminatory pay compensation. It would prohibit employers from asking job applicants how much they made in previous jobs when setting their pay.

It would also ban employer rules barring workers from discussing their salaries. And it would demand more transparency from companies about how much employees are paid.

The bill also directs the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to collect pay and employment data from employers broken down by sex, race, and ethnicity. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs at the Labor Department would also be tasked with conducting an annual survey of pay and hiring data from companies.

The Labor Department would also be required to make information on pay discrimination, including workers’ rights, readily available.

WASHINGTON, DC - House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (MD) released the following statement today on the introduction of the Paycheck Fairness Act for the 117th Congress:

“I am proud to cosponsor the Paycheck Fairness Act in the 117th Congress and I thank Chairwoman DeLauro for introducing it in the House. I was equally proud to bring it to the Floor last Congress and work to secure its passage. Unfortunately, the Republican Majority in the Senate and the Trump Administration blocked it from becoming law.

“It is long past time for women to receive equal pay for equal work.  Now, with a Democratic Senate Majority and President Biden and Vice President Harris in the White House, I look forward to bringing it to the Floor again and seeing it enacted into law.”

In Opposition 

Opponents of the bill, primarily Republicans, say it represents a gift to trial lawyers and would upset the current, appropriate balance between requiring any pay disparities to be limited to genuine, job-related factors and the ability of companies to exercise business judgment without undue and unnecessary interference. The bill represents a bonanza for lawyers, they say, by adding compensatory and punitive damages that greatly increases potential awards to both plaintiffs and their lawyers, and by automatically adding all potential plaintiffs to class action lawsuits — which again increases potential attorney rewards. And it makes it nearly impossible for employers to successfully defend themselves against charges of wage discrimination in lawsuits, modifying legal standards to effectively require employers to justify 100% of any pay differential and limit the long-recognized ability of business owners to justify pay differences based on different work locations. It also hamstrings the ability of employers to seek wage information from prospective employees or their employers, they say, and it mandates the intrusive government collection of work pay data.