L. 111–2 (text) (PDF), S. 181) is a landmark federal statute in the United States that was the first bill signed into law by U.S. President Barack Obama on January 29, 2009.

[1] The antecedents of the case were posed when Lilly Ledbetter, a production supervisor at a Goodyear tire plant in Alabama, filed an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, six months before her early retirement in 1998.

[4] The latter ruled in 2007 by a 5–4 majority vote that Ledbetter's complaint was time-barred because the discriminatory decisions relating to pay had been made more than 180 days prior to the date she filed her charge, as explained by Justice Samuel Alito.

[5] Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dissenting opinion proposed an interpretation according to which the law runs from the date of any paycheck that contains an amount affected by a prior discriminatory pay decision.

"[8] On the other side, the majority's findings were applauded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that called it a "fair decision" that "eliminates a potential wind-fall against employers by employees trying to dredge up stale pay claims.

Claiming lead from Justice Ruth Ginsburg's dissenting opinion, which invited the Congress to take action by amending the law, the Democrats announced their intention to intervene: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller said that a bill was to be passed to avoid future court rulings in line with Ledbetter, clearly putting that "a key provision of the legislation will make it clear that discrimination occurs not just when the decision to discriminate is made, but also when someone becomes subject to that discriminatory decision, and when they are affected by that discriminatory decision, including each time they are issued a discriminatory paycheck", as said by Rep.

[10] Republicans immediately opposed the bill as drafted, with Education and Labor Committee ranking member Howard McKeon raising the issue that business executives would be held liable for actions taken by managers who weren't leading the company anymore: "At the end of the day, such a loophole conceivably could allow a retiring employee to seek damages against a company now led by executives who had nothing to do with the initial act of discrimination".

[11] Neal Mollen, who represented the United States Chamber of Commerce in the Ledbetter case, argued that extending the term limit would put a strain on the chances of an adequate defense for the employers, as to defend themselves one "has to rely on documents and the memory of individuals, and neither of those is permanent.

[25] In 2017, the Trump administration announced it was ending an Obama-era rule that required businesses with over 100 employees to collect wage data by gender, race, and ethnicity.