The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act: Three Years Later

"Congress was willing to make this affirmation of a fundamental and basic statement, 'You don't get to discriminate against people in their pay, in their work based upon these arbitrary standards of gender or race or ethnicity.'" - Rep. George Miller  

This Sunday, January 29, marks the three-year anniversary of the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act - which was the first major act of Congress signed into law by President Obama - reverses a Supreme Court ruling that made it more difficult for women to pursue pay discrimination claims. 

The 2007 5-4 Ledbetter v. Goodyear Supreme Court decision severely restricted the rights of employees to challenge unlawful pay discrimination.  Under the Ledbetter ruling, if an employee did not file a claim within 180 days of her employer's decision to pay her less, she was barred forever from challenging the discriminatory paychecks that followed.  Under the law before the Supreme Court decision, every discriminatory paycheck was a new violation that restarted the clock for filing a claim.  The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act restored that rule.

The Act clarified that every paycheck or other compensation resulting from an earlier discriminatory pay decision constitutes a violation of the Civil Rights Act and applies to workers who file claims of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, or disability. 

On the one-year anniversary, then-Committee Chairman Rep. George Miller (D-CA) sat down with Lilly Ledbetter to discuss Ledbetter’s courageous story and what the Act means for working Americans across the country. Watch their conversation below:

On the law's first anniversary, Lilly Ledbetter wrote a blog post about her thoughts on the occasion and what a difference just one year made.

For more information on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, click here.