Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, 81 Stat. 602, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 621 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. V) (ADEA or Act), it is unlawful for an employer to discriminate against any employee or potential employee on the basis of age, except “where age is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the particular business, or where the differentiation is based on reasonable factors other than age.” The question presented in this case is whether Congress acted constitutionally when, in 1974, it extended the definition of “employer” under § 11(b) of the Act to include state and local governments. The United States District Court for the District of Wyoming, in an enforcement action brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC or Commission), held that, at least as applied to certain classes of state workers, the extension was unconstitutional. 514 F. Supp. 595 (1981). The Commission filed a direct appeal under 28 U. S. C. §1252, and we noted probable jurisdiction. 454 U. S. 1140 (1982). We now reverse.
M
Efforts in Congress to prohibit arbitrary age discrimination date back at least to the 1950’s. During floor debate over what was to become Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, amendments were offered in both the House and the Senate to ban discrimination on the basis of age as well as race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. These amendments were opposed at least in part on the basis that Congress did not yet have enough information to make a considered judgment about the nature of age discrimination, and each was ultimately defeated. 110 Cong. Rec. 2596-2599, 9911-9913, 13490-13492 (1964); EEOC, Legislative History of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act 5-14 (1981) (hereinafter Legislative History). Title VII did, however, include a provision, § 715, 78 Stat. 265 (since superseded by § 10 of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, 86 Stat. Ill), which directed the Secretary of Labor to “make a full and complete study of the factors which might tend to result in discrimination in employment because of age and of the consequences of such discrimination on the economy and individuals affected,” and to report the results of that study to Congress. That report was transmitted approximately one year later. Report of the Secretary of Labor, The Older American Worker: Age Discrimination in Employment (1965), Legislative History 16-41.
In 1966, Congress directed the Secretary of Labor to submit specific legislative proposals for prohibiting age discrimination. Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1966, § 606, 80 Stat. 845. The Secretary transmitted a draft bill in early 1967, see 113 Cong. Rec. 1377 (1967), and the President, in a message to Congress on older Americans, recommended its enactment and expressed serious concern about the problem of age discrimination, see Special Message to the Congress Proposing Programs for Older Americans, 1 Public Papers of the Presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson, 1967, pp. 32, 37 (1968). Congress undertook further study of its own, and Committees in both the House and the Senate conducted detailed hearings on the proposed legislation. See Age Discrimination in Employment: Hearings on S. 830 and S. 788 before the Subcommittee on Labor of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. (1967); Age Discrimination in Employment: Hearings on H. R. 3651 et al. before the General Subcommittee on Labor of the House Committee on Education and Labor, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. (1967); see also Retirement and the Individual: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Retirement and the Individual of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. (1967).
The report of the Secretary of Labor, whose findings were confirmed throughout the extensive factfinding undertaken by the Executive Branch and Congress, came to the following basic conclusions: (1) Many employers adopted specific age limitations in those States that had not prohibited them by their own antidiscrimination laws, although many other employers were able to operate successfully without them. (2) In the aggregate, these age limitations had a marked effect upon the employment of older workers. (3) Although age discrimination rarely was based on the sort of animus motivating some other forms of discrimination, it was based in large part on stereotypes unsupported by objective fact, and was often defended on grounds different from its actual causes. (4) Moreover, the available empirical evidence demonstrated that arbitrary age lines were in fact generally unfounded and that, as an overall matter, the performance of older workers was at least as good as that of younger workers. (5) Finally, arbitrary age discrimination was profoundly harmful in at least two ways. First, it deprived the national economy of the productive labor of millions of individuals and imposed on the governmental treasury substantially increased costs in unemployment insurance and federal Social Security benefits. Second, it inflicted on individual workers the economic and psychological injury accompanying the loss of the opportunity to engage in productive and satisfying occupations.
The product of the process of factfinding and deliberation formally begun in 1964 was the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. The preamble to the Act emphasized both the individual and social costs of age discrimination. The provisions of the Act as relevant here prohibited various forms of age discrimination in employment, including the discharge of workers on the basis of their age. §4(a), 29 U. S. C. § 623(a). The protection of the Act was limited, however, to workers between the ages of 40 and 65, § 12(a), 29 U. S. C. § 631, raised to age 70 in 1978, Age Discrimination in Employment Act Amendments of 1978, § 3(a), 92 Stat. 189. Moreover, in order to insure that employers were permitted to use neutral criteria not directly dependant on age, and in recognition of the fact that even criteria that are based on age are occasionally justified, the Act provided that certain otherwise prohibited employment practices would not be unlawful “where age is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the particular business, or where the differentiation is based on reasonable factors other than age.” § 4(f)(1), 29 II. S. C. § 623(f)(1).
The ADEA, as originally passed in 1967, did not apply to the Federal Government, to the States or their political subdivisions, or to employers with fewer thafi 25 employees. In a Report issued in 1973, a Senate Committee found this gap in coverage to be serious, and commented that “[t]here is . . . evidence that, like the corporate world, government managers also create an environment where young is somehow better than old.” Senate Special Committee on Aging, Improving the Age Discrimination Law, 93d Cong., 1st Sess., 14 (Comm. Print 1973), Legislative History 231. In 1974, Congress extended the substantive prohibitions of the Act to employers having at least 20 workers, and to the Federal and State Governments.
Prior to the District Court decision in this case, every federal court that considered the question upheld the constitutionality of the 1974 extension of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act to state and local workers as an exercise of Congress’ power under either the Commerce Clause or § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
This case arose out of the involuntary retirement at age 55 of Bill Crump, a District Game Division supervisor for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. Crump’s dismissal was based on a Wyoming statute that conditions further employment for Game and Fish Wardens who reach the age of 55 on “the approval of [their] employer.” Crump filed a complaint with the EEOC, alleging that the Game and Fish Department had violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. After conciliation efforts between the Commission and the Game and Fish Department failed, the Commission filed suit in the District Court for the District of Wyoming against the State and various of its officials seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, backpay, and liquidated damages on behalf of Mr. Crump and others similarly situated.
The District Court, upon a motion by the defendants, dismissed the suit. It held that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act violated the doctrine of Tenth Amendment immunity articulated in National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U. S. 833 (1976), at least insofar as it regulated Wyoming’s employment relationship with its game wardens and other law enforcement officials. 514 F. Supp., at 600. The District Court also held, citing Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1 (1981), that the application of the ADEA to the States could not be justified as an exercise of Congress’ power under §5 of the Fourteenth Amendment because Congress did not explicitly state that it invoked that power in passing the 1974 amendments. 514 F. Supp., at 600.
Ill
The appellees have not claimed either in the District Court or in this Court that Congress exceeded the scope of its affirmative grant of power under the Commerce Clause in enacting the ADEA. See generally National League of Cities v. Usery, supra, at 840-841; Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241, 243-244 (1964). Rather, the District Court held and appellees argue that, at least with respect to state game wardens, application of the ADEA to the States is precluded by virtue of external constraints imposed on Congress’ commerce powers by the Tenth Amendment.
A
National League of Cities v. Usery struck down Congress’ attempt to extend the wage and hour provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act to state and local governments. National League of Cities was grounded on a concern that the imposition of certain federal regulations on state governments might, if left unchecked, “allow ‘the National Government [to] devour the essentials of state sovereignty,”’ 426 U. S., at 855 (quoting Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U. S. 183, 205 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting)). It therefore drew from the Tenth Amendment an “affirmative limitation on the exercise of [congressional power under the Commerce Clause] akin to other commerce power affirmative limitations contained in the Constitution.” 426 U. S., at 841. The principle of immunity articulated in National League of Cities is a functional doctrine, however, whose ultimate purpose is not to create a sacred province of state autonomy, but to ensure that the unique benefits of a federal system in which the States enjoy a “ ‘separate and independent existence,’ ” id., at 845 (quoting Lane County v. Oregon, 7 Wall. 71, 76 (1869)), not be lost through undue federal interference in certain core State functions. See FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U. S. 742, 765-766 (1982); United Transportation Union v. Long Island R. Co., 455 U. S. 678, 686-687 (1982); Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S. 264, 286-288 (1981).
Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., supra, summarized the hurdles that confront any claim that a state or local governmental unit should be immune from an otherwise legitimate exercise of the federal power to regulate commerce:
“[I]n order to succeed, a claim that congressional commerce power legislation is invalid under the reasoning of National League of Cities must satisfy each of three requirements. First, there must be a showing that the challenged statute regulates the ‘States as States.’ Second, the federal regulation must address matters that are indisputably ‘attribute^] of state sovereignty.’ And third, it must be apparent that the States’ compliance with the federal law would directly impair their ability ‘to structure integral operations in areas of traditional governmental functions.’” 452 U. S., at 287-288 (citations omitted; emphasis in original).
Moreover,
“Demonstrating that these three requirements are met does not . . . guarantee that a Tenth Amendment challenge to congressional commerce power action will succeed. There are situations in which the nature of the federal interest advanced may be such that it justifies state submission.” Id., at 288, n. 29 (citations omitted).
See also United Transportation Union v. Long Island R. Co., supra, at 684, and n. 9. The first requirement — that the challenged federal statute regulate the “States as States”— is plainly met in this case. The second requirement — that the federal statute address an “undoubted attribute of state sovereignty” — poses significantly more difficulties. We need not definitively resolve this issue, however, nor do we have any occasion to reach the final balancing step of the inquiry described in Hodel, for we are convinced that, even if Wyoming’s decision to impose forced retirement on its game wardens does involve the exercise of an attribute of state sovereignty, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act does not “directly impair” the State’s ability to “structure integral operations in areas of traditional governmental functions.”
B
The management of state parks is clearly a traditional state function. National League of Cities, 426 U. S., at 851. As we have already emphasized, however, the purpose of the doctrine of immunity articulated in National League of Cities was to protect States from federal intrusions that might threaten their “separate and independent existence.” Ibid. Our decision as to whether the federal law at issue here directly impairs the States’ ability to structure their integral operations must therefore depend, as it did in National League of Cities itself, on considerations of degree. See id., at 845, 852; FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U. S., at 769-770. We conclude that the degree of federal intrusion in this case is sufficiently less serious than it was in National League of Cities so as to make it unnecessary for us to override Congress’ express choice to extend its regulatory authority to the States.
In this case, appellees claim no substantial stake in their retirement policy other than “assuring] the physical preparedness of Wyoming game wardens to perform their duties.” Brief for Appellees 18. Under the ADEA, however, the State may still, at the very least, assess the fitness of its game wardens and dismiss those wardens whom it reasonably finds to be unfit. Put another way, the Act requires the State to achieve its goals in a more individualized and careful manner than would otherwise be the case, but it does not require the State to abandon those goals, or to abandon the public policy decisions underlying them. FERC v. Mississippi, supra, at 771; cf. n. 11, supra.
Perhaps more important, appellees remain free under the ADEA to continue to do precisely what they are doing now, if they can demonstrate that age is a “bona fide occupational qualification” for the job of game warden. See supra, at 232-233. Thus, in distinct contrast to the situation in National League of Cities, supra, at 848, even the State’s discretion to achieve its goals in the way it thinks best is not being overridden entirely, but is merely being tested against a reasonable federal standard.
Finally, the Court’s concern in National League of Cities was not only with the effect of the federal regulatory scheme on the particular decisions it was purporting to regulate, but also with the potential impact of that scheme on the States’ ability to structure operations and set priorities over a wide range of decisions. 426 U. S., at 849-850. Indeed, National League of Cities spelled out in some detail how application of the federal wage and hour statute to the States threatened a virtual chain reaction of substantial and almost certainly unintended consequential effects on state decisionmaking. Id., at 846-852. Nothing in this case, however, portends anything like the same wide-ranging and profound threat to the structure of state governance.
The most tangible consequential effect identified in National League of Cities was financial: forcing the States to pay their workers a minimum wage and an overtime rate would leave them with less money for other vital state programs. The test of such financial effect as drawn in National League of Cities does not depend, however, on “particularized assessments of actual impact,” which may vary from State to State and time to time, but on a more generalized inquiry, essentially legal rather than factual, into the direct and obvious effect of the federal legislation on the ability of the States to allocate their resources. Id., at 851-852; see Hodel, 452 U. S., at 292, n. 33. In this case, we cannot conclude from the nature of the ADEA that it will have either a direct or an obvious negative effect on state finances. Older workers with seniority may tend to get paid more than younger workers without seniority, and may by their continued employment accrue increased benefits when they do retire. But these increased costs, even if they were not largely speculative in their own right, might very well be outweighed by a number of other factors: Those same older workers, as long as they remain employed, will not have to be paid any pension benefits at all, and will continue to contribute to the pension fund. And, when they do retire, they will likely, as an actuarial matter, receive benefits for fewer years than workers who retire early. Admittedly, as some of the amici point out, the costs of certain state health and other benefit plans would increase if they were automatically extended to older workers now forced to retire at an early age. But Congress, in passing the ADEA, included a provision specifically disclaiming a construction of the Act which would require that the health and similar benefits received by older workers be in all respects identical to those received by younger workers. ADEA § 4(f)(2), 29 U. S. C. § 623(f)(2) (1976 ed. and Supp. V).
The second consequential effect identified in National League of Cities was on the States’ ability to use their employment relationship with their citizens as a tool for pursuing social and economic policies beyond their immediate managerial goals. See, e. g., 426 U. S., at 848 (offering jobs at below the minimum wage to persons who do not possess “minimum employment requirements”). Appellees, however, have claimed no such purposes for Wyoming’s involuntary retirement statute. Moreover, whatever broader social or economic purposes could be imagined for this particular Wyoming statute would not, we are convinced, bring with them either the breadth or the importance of the state policies identified in National League of Cities.
>
The extension of the ADEA to cover state and local governments, both on its face and as applied in this case, was a valid exercise of Congress’ powers under the Commerce Clause. We need not decide whether it could also be upheld as an exercise of Congress’ powers under §5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The judgment of the District Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
See infra, at 231-233.
See Age Discrimination in Employment: Hearings on S. 830 and S. 788 before the Subcommittee on Labor of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 23 (1967) (statement of Sen. Javits); Note, 47 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1311, 1325 (1974).
“(a) The Congress hereby finds and declares that—
“(1) in the face of rising productivity and affluence, older workers find themselves disadvantaged in their efforts to retain employment, and especially to regain employment when displaced from jobs;
“(2) the setting of arbitrary age limits regardless of potential for job performance has become a common practice, and certain otherwise desirable practices may work to the disadvantage of older persons;
“(3) the incidence of unemployment, especially long-term unemployment with resultant deterioration of skill, morale, and employer acceptability is, relative to the younger ages, high among older workers; their numbers are great and growing; and their employment problems grave;
“(4) the existence in industries affecting commerce of arbitrary discrimination in employment because of age, burdens commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce.
“(b) It is therefore the purpose of this Act to promote employment of older persons based on their ability rather than age; to prohibit arbitrary age discrimination in employment; to help employers and workers find ways of meeting problems arising from the impact of age on employment.” §2, 29 U. S. C. §621.
Section 4(a) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 623(a), provides:
“It shall be unlawful for an employer —
“(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s age;
“(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s age; or
“(3) to reduce the wage rate of any employee in order to comply with this Act.”
The Act has roughly parallel provisions covering employment agencies and labor organizations. §§ 4(b), (c), 29 U. S. C. §§ 623(b), (c). In addition, it prohibits employers, employment agencies, and labor organizations from retaliating against persons who seek to enforce the Act, § 4(d), 29 U. S. C. § 623(d), and from publishing certain types of discriminatory employment notices, § 4(e), 29 U. S. C. § 623(e).
Congress extended the Act to cover state and local governments by-amending the definition of “employer” under § 11(b) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 630(b). (At the same time, Congress amended the definition of “employee” under § 11(f) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 630(f), to exclude state and local elected officials and certain non-civil-service appointed officials.) It extended the Act to cover federal workers by enacting a separate provision, § 15, 29 U. S. C. § 633a (1976 ed. and Supp. V), which created an independent enforcement mechanism under the jurisdiction of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 1978, at the same time that Congress raised the upper bound of the Act’s protection for state, local, and private employees from age 65 to age 70, it removed the cap entirely for federal workers. Age Discrimination in Employment Act Amendments of 1978, § 3(a), 92 Stat. 189, 29 U. S. C. § 631(b) (1976 ed. and Supp. V).
E. g., Arritt v. Grisett, 567 F. 2d 1267, 1269-1270 (CA4 1977); Carpenter v. Pennsylvania Liquor Control Bd., 508 F. Supp. 148 (ED Pa. 1981); EEOC v. Pennsylvania Liquor Control Bd., 503 F. Supp. 1051, 1052-1053 (MD Pa. 1980); Marshall v. Delaware River & Bay Auth., 471 F. Supp. 886, 891-892 (Del. 1979); EEOC v. Florissant Valley Fire Protection Dist., 21 FEP Cases 973, 21 EPD ¶ 30,520 (ED Mo. 1979); Remmick v. Barnes County, 435 F. Supp. 914 (ND 1977); Aaron v. Davis, 424 F. Supp. 1238, 1239-1241 (ED Ark. 1976); Usery v. Board of Education of Salt Lake City, 421 F. Supp. 718 (Utah 1976).
Since the District Court decision in this case, two other District Court opinions have followed its lead, Campbell v. Connelie, 542 F. Supp. 275, 280 (NDNY 1982); Taylor v. Montana Department of Fish & Game, 523 F. Supp. 514, 515 (Mont. 1981), but at least two Court of Appeals and eight District Court opinions have declined to do so, see EEOC v. County of Calumet, 686 F. 2d 1249, 1251-1253 (CA7 1982); EEOC v. Elrod, 674 F. 2d 601, 603-612 (CA7 1982); McCroan v. Bailey, 543 F. Supp. 1201, 1205-1207 (SD Ga. 1982); Kenny v. Valley County School District, 543 F. Supp. 1194, 1196-1199 (Mont. 1982); EEOC v. Minneapolis, 537 F. Supp. 750, 756 (Minn. 1982); Bleakley v. Jekyll Island — State Park Auth., 536 F. Supp. 236, 240 (SD Ga. 1982); EEOC v. County of Los Angeles, 531F. Supp. 122, 124 (CD Cal. 1982); EEOC v. County of Los Angeles, 526 F. Supp. 1135, 1137-1138 (CD Cal. 1981); Adams v. James, 526 F. Supp. 80, 84 (MD Ala. 1981); Johnson v. Mayor of Baltimore, 515 F. Supp. 1287, 1292 (Md. 1981).
Section 31-3-107 of the Wyoming State Highway Patrol and Game and Fish Warden Retirement Act, Wyo. Stat. § 31-3-107 (1977), provides that “[a]n employee may continue in service on a year-to-year basis after age . . . fifty-five (55), with the approval of the employer and under conditions as the employer may prescribe.” The provision also provides for the mandatory retirement of covered employees who reach the age of 65.
“The Congress shall have power . . . [t]o regulate commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” Art. I, §8, cl. 3.
Cf. Graves v. New York ex rel. O’Keefe, 306 U. S. 466, 489-490 (1939) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
It is worth emphasizing, however, that it is precisely this prong of the National League of Cities test that marks it as a specialized immunity doctrine rather than a broad limitation on federal authority. As we made clear in Hodel:
“A wealth of precedent attests to congressional authority to displace or pre-empt state laws regulating private activity affecting interstate commerce when these laws conflict with federal law. . . . Although such congressional enactments obviously curtail or prohibit the States’ prerogatives to make legislative choices respecting subjects the States may consider important, the Supremacy Clause permits no other result.” 452 U. S., at 290 (emphasis added; citations omitted).
See also FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U. S. 742, 759 (1982).
National League of Cities held that “there are attributes of sovereignty attaching to every state government which may not be impaired by Congress” and that “[o]ne undoubted attribute of state sovereignty is the States’ power to determine the wages which shall be paid to those whom they employ in order to carry out their governmental functions, what hours those persons will work, and what compensation will be provided where those employees may be called upon to work overtime.” 426 U. S., at 845. Precisely what it meant by an “undoubted attribute of state sovereignty” is somewhat unclear, however, and our subsequent cases applying the National League of Cities test have had little occasion to amplify on our understanding of the concept.
A State’s employment relationship with its workers can, under certain circumstances, be one vehicle for the exercise of its core sovereign functions. In National League of Cities, for example, the power to determine the wages of government workers was tied, among other things, to the exercise of the States’ public welfare interest in providing jobs to persons who would otherwise be unemployed, id., at 848. Moreover, some employment decisions are so clearly connected to the execution of underlying sovereign choices that they must be assimilated into them for purposes of the Tenth Amendment. See id., at 850 (relating power to determine hours of government workers to unimpeded exercise of State’s role as provider of emergency services). See generally id., at 851 (stressing importance of state autonomy as to “those fundamental employment decisions upon which their systems for performance of [their dual functions of administering the public law and furnishing public services] must rest”) (emphasis added). But we are not to be understood to suggest that every state employment decision aimed simply at advancing a generalized interest in efficient management — even the efficient management of traditional state functions — should be considered to be an exercise of an “undoubted attribute of state sovereignty.”
See n. 17, infra.
The only other interest alluded to by appellees is in maintaining the integrity of the state pension system. See n. 15, infra.
We do not mean to suggest that such consequential effects could be enough, by themselves, to invalidate a federal statute. See FERC v. Mississippi, supra, at 770, n. 33; Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U. S. 264, 292, n. 33 (1981).
Appellees argue that prohibiting involuntary retirement at age 55 will somehow interfere with the State’s ability to “enable those law enforcement officers who, due to the rigors of their occupations, cannot work beyond 55 to retire with a maximum [pension] benefit.” Brief for Appel-lees 12, n. 5. They do not, of course, suggest that anything in the Age Discrimination in Employment Act forbids the State to continue to provide maximum pension benefits to game wardens who retire at age 55. Rather, they claim that eliminating mandatory retirement will require the State to “balance [its pension] fund periodically based upon the number of employees who remained in service beyond 55,” and that this would require “the complete restructuring of the benefit program.” Frankly, we do not see how the State’s financial ability to provide maximum benefits to game wardens who retire at age 55 would be anything but helped by eliminating the involuntary retirement of workers eligible to receive those maximum benefits. Cf. National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U. S., at 853 (distinguishing Economic Stabilization Act from Fair Labor Standards Act on basis that former “operated to reduce the pressures upon state budgets rather than increase them”).
The present version of § 4(f)(2) provides that
“[i]t shall not be unlawful for an employer ... to observe the terms of a bona fide seniority system or any bona fide employee benefit plan such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan, which is not a subterfuge to evade the purposes of [the] Act, except that no such employee benefit plan shall excuse the failure to hire any individual, and no such seniority system or employee benefit plan shall require or permit the involuntary retirement of any individual [between the ages of 40 and 70] because of the age of such individual.” (The last clause, relating to involuntary retirement, was added by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act Amendments of 1978, § 2(a), 92 Stat. 189.)
As Senator Jacob Javits explained in 1967, the meaning of this provision is that an employer is not compelled “to afford to older workers exactly the same pension, retirement, or insurance benefits as he affords to younger workers.” 113 Cong. Rec. 31255 (1967), Legislative History 146. See H. R. Rep. No. 805, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 4 (1967), Legislative History 77; 123 Cong. Rec. 34295 (1977) (remarks of Sen. Williams), Legislative History 482; 124 Cong. Rec. 8218-8219 (1978) (remarks of Sen. Javits), Legislative History 539-540.
Even if the minimal character of the federal intrusion in this case did not lead us to hold that the ADEA survives the third prong of the Hodel inquiry, it might still, when measured against the well-defined federal interest in the legislation, require us to find that the nature of that interest “justifies state submission.” We note, incidentally, that the strength of the federal interest underlying the Act is not negated by the fact that the Federal Government happens to impose mandatory retirement on a small class of its own workers. See Brief for Appellees 19. But cf. n. 5, supra (no upper age limit on Act’s protection of federal employees). Once Congress has asserted a federal interest, and once it has asserted the strength of that interest, we have no warrant for reading into the ebbs and flows of political decisionmaking a conclusion that Congress was insincere in that declaration, and must from that point on evaluate the sufficiency of the federal interest as a matter of law rather than of psychological analysis.
We do reaffirm that when properly exercising its power under § 5, Congress is not limited by the same Tenth Amendment constraints that circumscribe the exercise of its Commerce Clause powers. City of Rome v. United States, 446 U. S. 156, 179 (1980). We also note that, whatever else may be said about the § 5 question in this case, the District Court erred in reading Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1 (1981), as holding that congressional action could not be upheld on the basis of § 5 unless Congress “expressly articulated its intent to legislate under § 5,” and in disposing of the § 5 argument on the sole basis that “nothing in the 1974 . . . Amendments [to the ADEA] or their legislative history . . . suggests] that Congress acted pursuant to any other power than the Commerce Clause,” 514 F. Supp. 595, 600 (1981).
It is in the nature of our review of congressional legislation defended on the basis of Congress’ powers under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment that we be able to discern some legislative purpose or factual predicate that supports the exercise of that power. That does not mean, however, that Congress need anywhere recite the words “section 5” or “Fourteenth Amendment” or “equal protection,” see, e. g., Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 476-478 (1980) (Burger, C. J.), for “[t]he . . . constitutionality of action taken by Congress does not depend on recitals of the power which it undertakes to exercise.” Woods v. Cloyd W. Miller Co., 333 U. S. 138, 144 (1948).
Our task in Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, supra, was to construe a statute, 461 U. S., at 15, not to adjudge its constitutional validity, see id., at 16, n. 12. The Court characterized the question before it as whether “Congress intended a certain statute] to create enforceable rights and obligations.” Id., at 15. It then made the unremarkable statement, relied on by the District Court, that “we should not quickly attribute to Congress an unstated intent to act under its authority to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment.” Id., at 16. The rule of statutory construction invoked in Pennhurst was, like all rules of statutory construction, a tool with which to divine the meaning of otherwise ambiguous statutory intent. Here, there is no doubt what the intent of Congress was: to extend the application of the ADEA to the States. The observations in Pennhurst therefore simply have no relevance to the question of whether, in this case, Congress acted pursuant to its powers under § 5.