The United States guarantees equal pay for substantially equal work under the federal Equal Pay Act, but has no federal equal-value or job-evaluation mandate, and is the headline non-ratifier of ILO Convention 100. Some states have introduced comparable-worth or pay-equity measures that go further.
The Equal Pay Act of 1963 (29 U.S.C. § 206(d)) was among the world's first equal pay statutes — and it remains, by design, a same-work law. It requires equal pay for men and women performing substantially equal work in the same establishment, with equality judged on skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. The irony is structural: the EPA names the four classic compensable factors, but uses them only as a gate — deciding whether two jobs are close enough to compare — never as a scale for valuing different jobs against each other. Title VII adds broader discrimination protection, but US federal law contains no equal-value (comparable worth) mandate, and the United States is the headline non-ratifier of ILO Convention 100 among major economies.
The action is in the states. California, Colorado, Illinois, and New Jersey apply "substantially similar work" standards that loosen the federal gate — California's Fair Pay Act reaching race and ethnicity as well as sex, with comparators beyond a single establishment, and SB 642 (effective 1 January 2026) extending recovery to six years of back wages. Meanwhile pay transparency has swept the map: more than a dozen jurisdictions — California, Colorado, New York, Washington, Illinois, and others — now require salary ranges in job postings, with several adding pay data reporting (California's annual pay data reports being the most demanding).
Every employer faces the federal EPA and Title VII; multistate employers face a patchwork in which the strictest state effectively sets the standard. Transparency obligations attach by posting location and remote-work reach, which in practice nationalizes the strictest posting rules for any employer hiring remotely.
EPA and state-law class actions remain a high-exposure category, with "substantially similar" standards making class certification easier than the federal gate ever did. The structural trend is unmistakable even without an equal-value statute: posted ranges, pay data reporting, and salary-history bans (now widespread) all push employers toward defensible pay structures — and plaintiffs' experts increasingly deploy factor-based comparisons that federal law never required but juries readily understand.
US law never mandated job evaluation — it just keeps building the world where employers who haven't done it lose. The factors have been in the statute since 1963; the discipline of scoring jobs on them is the part employers still choose for themselves.
Government-published job evaluation tools, guides, and templates — each links directly to the official source.
The federal statute and enforcement guidance. The EPA's "equal work" test uses skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions — but only to decide whether jobs are substantially equal, not to compare different jobs of equal value.
The US has not ratified ILO Convention 100; the ILO's point-factor guide remains the international reference for the equal-value comparison US federal law does not require.
No. The federal Equal Pay Act requires equal pay for substantially equal work — judged on skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions within the same establishment — but it never requires comparing different jobs of equal value, so no job evaluation mandate exists. Several states go further with "substantially similar work" standards, and pay transparency laws are spreading fast.
Jobs must be substantially equal in skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions, performed in the same establishment. The four factors are the classic compensable set — but they operate as a gate deciding whether two jobs may be compared at all, not as a scale for valuing different jobs.
California, Colorado, Illinois, and New Jersey apply "substantially similar work" standards that loosen the federal gate, with California's covering race and ethnicity as well as sex — and its SB 642 (effective January 1, 2026) extended recovery periods. Pay transparency laws covering salary ranges in postings now span more than a dozen jurisdictions including California, Colorado, New York, Washington, and Illinois.
No — the US is the headline non-ratifier among major economies. Federal law remains a substantially-equal-work regime; the comparable worth (equal value) approach has never been adopted at the federal level.
PointFactors implements the analytical, factor-based methodology referenced by pay equity laws worldwide.
Book a DemoInformational summary of legal requirements, not legal advice. Verify against primary sources before relying on it.
Last reviewed: 2026-06-11