Wage Equality - Equal Pay Act

Both state and federal law provide protections against wage discrimination on the basis of gender, race and ethnicity.

California enacted the Equal Pay Act in 1949 and most recently amended the law with the Fair Pay Act and Wage Equality Act, which took effect in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Under the law, both public and private employers are prohibited from paying any of their employees less than employees of another sex or of another race or ethnicity for “substantially similar work.” The term “ethnicity” is not defined by the law. The law also addresses “pay secrecy,” which the legislature found contributes to the gender wage gap “because women