Written by digital content editor Thomas Ahearn
On July 28, 2022, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced the release of a consensus study report titled “Evaluation of Compensation Data Collected Through the EEO-1 Form” which has studied the history and early collection of compensation data by the EEOC. of select private employers and federal contractors completed in 2020, according to an EEOC press release.
Released by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the study confirmed that data collected by the EEOC can be used effectively by the agency to help focus its resources to identify discrimination. salary and offered short-term and long-term recommendations for improving salaries. collection of data by the agency if undertaken in the future. Specifically, the study commissioned by the EEOC in 2020 found:
- Wage data collection is necessary to assess wage practices and pay differences by gender, race and ethnicity.
- The data collected by the EEOC is unique and no other federal data collection captures the same information from private sector employers.
- Response rates from employers submitting wage data were approximately 90% for this first historical data collection, covering approximately 70,000 employers and more than 100 million workers each collection year, although the EEOC does not was unable to identify all eligible companies.
- Salary data would allow the EEOC to pursue a more data-driven approach to investigating and resolving accusations of discrimination and could be used to help prioritize investigations and resource allocation; identify systemic discrimination; and analyze national, regional and sectoral pay gaps.
- To improve the EEOC’s ability to enforce the law and address wage disparities, the EEOC should expand and strengthen its data collections. It recommended several short- and long-term improvements that would not only improve the reliability of any future collection of compensation data, but would also facilitate the production of information by employers.
For example, the study report found that one employer had a -51.3% pay gap for black men versus white men in the professional job category, another employer had a -52.3% compensation for Hispanic female professionals compared to white male professionals, and a third employer had a -52.4% pay gap for Asian female technicians compared to white male technicians. The study report is available here.
“The study confirmed what we have long known at the EEOC – the collection and analysis of salary data can be a useful tool in preventing and combating pay discrimination in American workplaces,” the president said. of the EEOC, Charlotte A. Burrows, in the press release. “The National Academies’ rigorous review of the Commission’s first historical compensation data collection validates our efforts to collect and use compensation data to achieve pay equity in our country.”
President Burrows added, “Wage discrimination continues to be a significant barrier to economic fairness for millions of workers, which, in turn, harms the nation. However, wage discrimination is difficult to combat because it is hidden. This study confirms that the collection of federal compensation data could be a unique and critically important resource to help the Commission better identify and combat wage discrimination.
The EEOC — a U.S. government agency that enforces federal employment discrimination laws — can bring equal pay discrimination lawsuits against employers who allegedly violate the Equal Pay Act of 1963. (EPA) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1966 (Title VII). Both laws prohibit wage discrimination based on sex. However, the gender pay gap has remained relatively stable in the United States over the past 15 years.
In 2020, women earned 84% of what men earned, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center, and women would need to work an extra 42 days to earn what men earned in 2020 based on that estimate. As a result, laws prohibiting employers from asking about salary history have increased to narrow the gender pay gap. As of 2022, bans on salary history questions exist in many major US cities and several states.
“Pay equity” is a way to eliminate discrimination based on gender and race in the wage-setting system, which means that the criteria used by employers to set wages must be gender-neutral and race, according to the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE), a coalition of women’s and civil rights organizations working to eliminate gender and race-based wage discrimination and close the wage gap between women, as well as people of color, and men.
“When an employer asks a background check company to perform prior employment checks as part of a job applicant’s pre-employment background check, it is essential that the verification company knows which cities, counties and states prohibit salary history questions, otherwise the employer could be fined or sued,” explained attorney Lester Rosen, founder of Employment Screening Resources. (ESR), a service offering from ClearStar.
Employment Screening Resources (ESR) – a service offering from ClearStar, a leading human resources technology company specializing in background screening, drug screening and occupational health screening – offers employment screening solutions flexible and customizable employment opportunities for employers across all industries that closely follow federal and state governments. , and local wage history and pay equity laws. To learn more, contact ESR today.
NOTE: Employment Screening Resources (ESR) – a service offering of ClearStar – does not provide or offer legal services or legal advice of any kind. All information on this website is for educational purposes only.
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