Employment

What Counts as "Substantially Similar Work" in an Equal Pay Case

Q: How Is the California Test Different From the Federal 'Equal Work' Standard?

Federal law ( 29 U.S.C. § 206(d) ) requires "equal work" on jobs requiring equal skill, effort, and responsibility in the same establishment — a stricter, narrower test. California requires only substantial similarity viewed as a composite, with no establishment limit, and puts the burden of justifying any gap squarely on the employer — see how the four employer defenses actually work . This is one of several reasons a California employee usually fares better under state law.

Every California equal pay case turns on one comparison: is your work substantially similar to the work of a higher-paid coworker of another sex, race, or ethnicity? Employers often wave the question away by pointing at job titles or org charts. The law doesn’t. Labor Code § 1197.5 compares what people actually do — and it is deliberately broader than the federal “equal work” standard. Here is how the test works and how to identify the comparator who makes your case.

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What Counts as "Substantially Similar Work" in an Equal Pay Case

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Yes. Titles are labels, and California courts look past them to actual duties. A "coordinator" and a "specialist," an "office manager" and an "operations lead" — if the composite of skill, effort, and responsibility is comparable and the working conditions are similar, they can be comparators. This matters because title inflation and title fragmentation are two of the most common ways pay gaps hide. What you actually do every week, not what your signature block says, controls the comparison — and it's why level and band assignments in tech get the same scrutiny.

No. The federal Equal Pay Act requires comparators within the same "establishment," but California's statute contains no such requirement. An employee at a company's Sacramento office can generally compare her pay to a counterpart doing substantially similar work at its Los Angeles headquarters. For multi-site employers — retail chains, healthcare systems, agencies with regional offices — this dramatically widens the pool of lawful comparators.

One can be enough. The statute prohibits paying you less than "employees" of another sex, race, or ethnicity for substantially similar work, and courts have allowed claims built on a single well-matched comparator. More comparators strengthen the pattern and make the employer's justification harder to sustain, but don't assume you have no case because only one person's pay is known to you — what the claim is worth depends on the gap and its duration, not the number of comparators.

California gives you more tools than most states. Labor Code § 232 protects your right to discuss and disclose wages with coworkers, and § 1197.5(k) prohibits retaliation for asking about or asserting equal pay rights. You can also request the pay scale for your own position under § 432.3. In litigation, your attorney obtains payroll records, pay bands, and compensation policies in discovery — so partial information at the start is normal, not disqualifying.

Federal law (29 U.S.C. § 206(d)) requires "equal work" on jobs requiring equal skill, effort, and responsibility in the same establishment — a stricter, narrower test. California requires only substantial similarity viewed as a composite, with no establishment limit, and puts the burden of justifying any gap squarely on the employer — see how the four employer defenses actually work. This is one of several reasons a California employee usually fares better under state law.

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What Counts as "Substantially Similar Work" in an Equal Pay Case

Understanding Your Equal Pay Case

Can You Compare Your Pay to Someone With a Different Job Title?

Does Your Comparator Have to Work at the Same Location?

How Many Comparators Do You Need for an Equal Pay Claim?

How Do You Find Out What Coworkers Are Paid?

How Is the California Test Different From the Federal 'Equal Work' Standard?

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Equal Pay FAQs

My title is 'senior' and his isn't, but we do the same job. Can we be compared?

Can I compare myself to someone at our other office?

I only know one coworker's salary. Is that enough to start?

Is it legal for me to ask coworkers what they make?

Do part-time and full-time employees get compared?

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