Feds Begin Tracking Employer Pay by Gender, Race to ‘Better FOCUS INVESTIGATIONS’

Craig Bannister | September 29, 2016
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Employers must begin reporting gender, race, and ethnicity pay data in order to help the government better target companies for wage discrimination, the White House announced today.

60,000 employers are now required to provide pay for 63 million employees by demographic on the new, revised reporting form, the White House announced on Thursday:

“Today, the EEOC, in cooperation with the Department of Labor, is publishing its finalized revisions to its EEO-1 form, which for the first time will collect summary pay data, broken down by gender, race, and ethnicity, from all businesses with 100 or more employees.  This data collection, which stems from a recommendation by the President’s Equal Pay Task Force and a Presidential Memorandum issued in 2014, is expected to cover roughly 63 million employees and 60,000 employers.”

The data collection is intended to let employers know they’re being watched - and to better target those who don’t take steps to equalize pay by racial, ethic, and gender categories:

“Today’s action will promote improved voluntary compliance by employers with existing equal pay laws.  It will also help EEOC and the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) better focus investigations on employers who are illegally shortchanging workers’ pay based on their gender, race, or ethnicity.

“Businesses have long used the EEO-1 form to report demographic information on their workforces.  With the revised EEO-1, businesses also will report summary data on the range of compensation paid to employees of each demographic group.  Businesses will not be required to disclose individual employees’ salaries.”

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) approved this action by a vote of the Commission following final approval by the Office of Management. Employers have 18 months to comply.

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