Mississippi Becomes Last State to Enact Gender Pay Equity Law

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves has signed legislation requiring equal pay for women and men doing the same jobs.

That makes Mississippi the 50th and last U.S. state to enact an equal pay law. When it takes effect July 1, the legislation (H.B. 770) will apply to full-time employees working at least 40 hours a week.

• The law will allow employers to pay men more based on seniority or merit, or based on a woman’s salary history or gaps in her employment. Women’s rights advocates criticized those exceptions as practices that perpetuate the wage gap for women.
• It also requires aggrieved workers to choose between filing wage discrimination claims under the state law or under the federal Equal Pay Act of 1963.
• Most other states have had equal pay laws for decades. Alabama’s gender pay equity law, enacted in 2019, bans pay discrimination based on race and blocks employers from requiring job applicants to disclose their salary history.

Listen for more: Women Struggle to Bring Equal Pay Suits to Court (Podcast)