Comparable worth (also referred to as comparable pay or pay equity) is the idea that workers should receive equal pay for work of equal value. Comparable worth is most closely associated with differences in pay by gender. In the late 1960s, working women in the United States received only 59 percent of what working men were earning. During the 1980s, led by women in Oregon, pressure for pay based on comparable worth became a widely debated issue. Supporters argued women were shuttled into lowerpaying professions, particularly education and nursing, and subjected to sex stereotyping, amounting to decades of undervaluing work done by women. In Oregon, women working for the state confronted the state legislature and described their job responsibilities. When asked to guess their pay, the legislators overestimated women’s pay by at least 15 percent. The efforts of women in Oregon led to pay-equity projects where jobs were evaluated and compared according to the level of skill, effort, and responsibility required for the job. This resulted in numeric rankings of jobs and equalization of pay based on rankings. While comparableworth legislation grew in Canada, with most provinces passing legislation calling for achieving equal pay for work of equal value, in the United States comparableworth laws have been limited to local and state publicsector workers. The EQUAL PAY ACT of 1963 has been interpreted in the courts as requiring equal pay only for workers in the same job and therefore has not affected efforts to equalize pay for jobs that are dissimilar but of equal skill and value. By 1999 women workers in the United States were earning 75 percent of what men were earning, reflecting their increasing shift away from traditional, low-paying occupations. The change also reflects a robust economy that has raised most workers’ wages, due largely to efforts achieving pay based on comparable worth.