Trump Rolls Back EEO-1 Equal Pay Proposal

As of August 2017, President Trump has frozen the Obama-era policy requiring large companies to report employee pay by race and gender to the federal government.

The policy was rolled back for a variety of reasons. Neomi Rao of the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs stated in the Wall Street Journal “we don’t believe it would actually help us gather information about wage and employment discrimination.”

Also, Randy Johnson, Senior Vice President for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, stated that the policy would have cost employers about $1.3 billion a year.

Last, the Society for Human Resources (SHRM) opposed this policy as well. It stated the policy would place a burden on employers and would call into question the pay disparities influenced by an individual’s performance, education and geographic location.

Under Obama’s policy, companies with 100 or more employees would be required to include pay data on their EEO-1 reports. These reports are already mandatory, but the policy would require companies to include information on employee gender, race and position.

Originally, the Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC) stated the original policy would have given the agency more ability to “assess complaints of discrimination, focus agency investigations and identify existing pay disparities that may warrant further examination.”

The future of this policy is under review. The Trump administration “look[s] forward to continuing to work with the EEOC, OMB, Congress and all relevant stakeholders on robust policies aimed at eliminating the gender wage gap.”

GovDocs Labor Law News will be following up on this as more information is released.