Associations and other large companies can expect to start reporting pay data by race and gender soon, according to a recent court ruling.
On March 4, 2019, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled that the Trump administration did not justify its decision to freeze an Obama-era rule requiring the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to collect wage data to identify and benchmark pay inequities in the workforce. The rule, which was finalized in September 2016, required companies with 100 or more employees to provide employee wage data to the EEOC by March 31, 2018.
In August 2017, the Trump administration directed EEOC to freeze its collection of pay data; this decision was legally challenged by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), which claimed the government was hampering its ability to identify pay inequities to advocate on behalf of women and minorities.
The White House and some business interests had argued that the data reporting requirement was a costly and unjust burden on employers. The White House has not indicated whether it will appeal the ruling. If the ruling is not appealed, it’s not yet clear when companies will have to comply with the original requirement.
This article was provided to OSAE by the Power of A and ASAE's Inroads.