The New “Equal Pay”: New Legal Rules and Approaches for Identifying (and Fixing) Pay Discrimination

Federal and state governments have been slowing changing the definition of “pay discrimination” in an effort to close the persistent gender “pay gap.” The effort has been supercharged in 2018 by the #MeToo movement and stories of sexual harassment that dominate headlines. Indeed, recent studies show decades of sexual harassment exacerbated the gender pay gap. The result among thought leaders is a whole new set of best practices for setting starting salaries, monitoring pay ranges across similar positions, broadening conceptions of comparable work, and other tools to ensure all employees are paid fairly and help mitigate the risk of complaints.