Under the federal Equal Pay Act two jobs are compared on skill, effort and responsibility, performed under similar working conditions in the same establishment. The test is substantial equality of the actual work, not identical duties and not the job description. Titles are irrelevant, and jobs with different titles in different departments can still be comparable.
The three factors
Skill. The experience, ability, education and training the job requires — not what the incumbent happens to have. Someone overqualified for a role does not make that role higher-skilled.
Effort. The physical or mental exertion the work needs. Occasional extra tasks do not create a difference unless they are a real and regular part of the job.
Responsibility. Accountability and consequence — who signs off, who is answerable when it goes wrong, who supervises. This is where genuine differences most often sit.
Working conditions and establishment
Similar physical surroundings and hazards. And, federally, the same establishment — generally a distinct physical place of business, though the concept has been read more flexibly where operations are genuinely centralised. Several states have removed or relaxed this requirement.
What does not count
The job title. The department. The reporting line by itself. Whether the two people were hired at different times. Whether one negotiated harder — that is a question about the employer’s defense, not about whether the jobs are comparable.
Picking a comparator
You need at least one real person of the opposite sex doing substantially equal work and paid more. Not a hypothetical, and not a market average. That requirement is why pay transparency and the right to ask for a pay scale matter so much here — without them the comparator is invisible.
Building the comparison
Write both jobs out by actual duties with rough time shares, then map them factor by factor. If the two lists look alike and the pay does not, you have the beginning of a claim. If responsibility genuinely differs, that is worth knowing before you raise it.
Common questions
What makes two jobs comparable?
Substantially equal skill, effort and responsibility under similar working conditions. The actual work, not the job description.
Do the titles have to match?
No. Titles are irrelevant, and jobs with different titles in different departments can still be comparable.
Does my own qualification level matter?
No. Skill means what the job requires, not what the person holding it happens to have.
Do I need a specific comparator?
Yes — a real person doing substantially equal work and paid more. A market average is not a comparator.
What about the same establishment?
Federal law compares within one establishment, generally a distinct place of business. Several states have relaxed or removed that limit.