Employers Have Until September 30, 2019 to Provide Pay Equity Information to EEOC

On April 25, 2019, Judge Tanya Chutkan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in National Women’s Law Center et al v. Office of Management and Budget et al., Civil Action No. 17-cv-2458 (D.D.C.) (“National Women’s Law Center”) that employers subject to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) EEO-1 reporting requirements (employers with more than 100 employees and federal contractors with 50 or more employees with a federal contract, subcontract or purchase order exceeding $50,000) must provide employee pay equity data (“Component 2” information) for fiscal years 2017 and 2018 by September 30, 2019.

Subject employers have had to provide data on gender, race, ethnicity, etc. (“Component 1” information) for over 50 years.  In 2016, the Obama Administration ruled that employers would also have to provide summary pay equity data, which is expected to include the number of employees in each pay band listed on the EEO-1 form. In August 2017, the Trump Administration’s Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) stayed this requirement after concluding that the update would be “unnecessarily burdensome.”  Various advocacy groups sued, leading to the above-referenced court decision.

At this point, subject employers must provide 2017 and 2018 Component 2 information by September 30, 2019.  The EEOC has indicated that it will make the Component 2 portal available to all employers by mid July 2019, at which time the EEO-1 Component 2 Survey will be presented.  Although employers should note that the Department of Justice filed a Notice of Appeal in National Women’s Law Center on May 3, 2019, this appeal does not stay the district court’s order and employers should begin gathering Component 2 information.