EEOC not seeking renewal of EEO-1 pay data collection, but current data collection requirements intact
By Larry Morgan, MAIR, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, GPHR
October 16, 2019
By Sept. 30, 2019, employers with 100 or more employees were required to submit pay data for 2017 and 2018 to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This submission is known as the Component 2 EEO-1 survey, and covered employers should have received both an email notification and a letter providing their user ID, which is needed to access the online filing system for the EEO-1.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced on Sept. 12, 2019, that it is not seeking renewed approval to collect compensation data after its first and only reporting period. In 2016, the EEO-1 report was revised to include information on employee 2017 and 2018 compensation data, which raised employer concerns on burdensome reporting requirements and privacy/confidentiality concerns.
How we got here
On Aug. 29, 2017, the Office of Management and Budget halted the pending collection of Component 2 data by issuing a memo staying the initiative while it assessed its effectiveness. Among other things, the OMB contended the revisions to the EEO-1 report were unnecessarily burdensome on employers and did not adequately address privacy and confidentiality concerns.
However, in March 2019, the reporting requirements were unexpectedly reinstated by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia’s decision in
National Women’s Law Ctr. v. OMB, Civil Action No. 17-2458 (D.D.C.). The court vacated the OMB stay and subsequently ordered employers to report two years of their employees’ W-2 wage information and total hours worked in 12 pay bands by gender, race and ethnicity on the new Component 2 of the EEO-1 report. The court also declared that approval for the revised EEO-1 report including Component 2 data shall expire no later than April 5, 2021.
Therefore, private employers with 100 or more employees who submit the Employer Information Report (EEO-1) should have also submitted information regarding their employees’ 2017 and 2018 compensation data (known as Component 2 data) to the EEOC by Sept. 30.
What the future holds
The EEOC still intends to continue its future collection of the traditional Component 1 data regarding the gender, race and ethnicity of a reporting employer’s workforce.
In the notice, the EEOC said that a new OMB control number for Component 1 that is separate from the current control number for the Component 2 collection will minimize confusion for EEO-1 filers.
The EEOC has concluded that it should consider information from the ongoing Component 2 data collection before deciding whether to submit a pay data collection to OMB.
"At this point in time, the unproven utility to its enforcement program of the pay data as defined in the 2016 Component 2 is far outweighed by the burden imposed on employers that must comply with the reporting obligation. Therefore, the EEOC is not seeking to renew Component 2 of the EEO-1," the Commission said.
Larry Morgan runs the MNCPA HR Hotline and is president of Orion HR Group, LLC. He is a regular contributor to Footnote. You may reach him at larry.morgan@orionhr.com.
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