On April 20, 2022, Mississippi became the last state in the nation to enact an equal pay law, when Governor Tate Reeves signed the Mississippi Equal Pay for Equal Work Act ("Mississippi Act" or "the Act").1
The new law, which takes effect July 1, 2022, follows the liability standard of the federal Equal Pay Act, prohibiting employers from paying workers of one sex less than they pay those of the opposite sex for work that "requires equal skill, education, effort and responsibility, and which is performed under similar working conditions." The Mississippi Act further mirrors the federal Equal Pay Act in that it permits pay disparities that are based on:
While the passage of the equal pay law brings Mississippi into line with other states, the law lacks some provisions of more expansive state counterparts. By limiting its coverage to gender-based pay differences, for example, the Mississippi Act does not extend the protection against pay discrimination to race-based wage differentials or disparities in pay based on other protected categories such as sexual orientation, age and disability.
Further, unlike some other state laws, the Mississippi Act does not narrow the defense based on "any factor other than sex." To the contrary, it may expand that defense by articulating what some of those "other factors" can be. The Act defines...
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