The Social Security Act contains a provision that allows women to calculate their earnings differently from men.
Women are allowed to exclude 3 more years of low earnings than men can.
This difference privileges women and allows them to collect more benefits.
Procedural History:
SCOTUS held constitutional.
Issues:
Are gender classifications benefitting women allowed when they are designed to remedy past discrimination or differences in opportunity?
Holding/Rule:
Gender classifications benefitting women are allowed when they are designed to remedy past discrimination or differences in opportunity.
Reasoning:
Reduction in the disparity in economic condition between men and women caused by the long history of discrimination against women has been recognized as an important gov't objective.
The more favorable treatment of the female wage earner here was not a result of archaic and overbroad generalizations about women or of the stereotyping society has imposed on women.
Rather, the only discernible purpose of the provision is the redressing of our society's longstanding disparate treatment of women.
The challenged statute operated directly to compensate women for past economic discrimination.
Dissent:
None.
Notes:
Classification benefitting women as a remedy for past, found constitutional.
