In addition to the federal laws covering pay equity, most states have enacted laws laws that resemble or are analogous to the the Equal Pay Act. As of 2003, 39 states had statutes that specifically address pay equity. The following is a quick look at how states generally handle the topic.

• 11 states that do not have specific pay equity laws: Alabama, Alaska, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin.

 

• 17 states have statutes modeled on the EPA and require the “equal work” standard: California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming.

 

• 12 states have statutes requiring equal wages for “comparable work”: Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Of these twelve “comparable work” states, four states still have affirmative defenses, like the EPA, which allow employers to argue a “factor other than sex” defense: Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, and West Virginia. The federal statute's requirement that the work be equal in nature makes proving a case under the federal scheme a more difficult undertaking than in the states where the “comparable work” standard provides a less stringent burden of proof. However, even in these states women do not frequently use these state statutes to bring pay equity claims. In Maine, for example, as of 2003, in the thirty-seven years that the “comparable work” standard had been a part of the statute, there has not been a single reported case discussing a claim brought pursuant to the statute. In Kentucky, the last reported case brought under the state statute was in 1972.

 

• 3 states although they do not use the “equal work” language require that stringent standard by stating that male and female work must be the “same”: Arizona, Missouri, and Montana.

 

• 3 states, without using the specific “comparable work” language, use this standard by using the term “similar”: Illinois, Michigan, and Washington.

 

• 3 states make violations of equal pay a criminal misdemeanor: Michigan, Montana, and Washington. In Michigan and Washington, in addition to the criminal violation, a woman can bring a civil action.

 

• 4 states do not delineate a specific standard and merely prohibit sex-based wage discrimination: Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, and New Jersey. 

Unlike the federal EPA, some states require that women file a claim with an administrative agency similar to the EEOC before a claim can be filed in court.

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