Federal agencies address future of pay data collection

If the Paycheck Fairness Act had passed the Senate (see "Pay Equity Corner" on pg. 4), the Act specifically included requirements that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contractor Compliance Programs (OFCCP) collect pay data. The Act would have required the EEOC to reinstate the pay data collection, known as the EEO-1 Report, Component 2, and would have directed the OFCCP to collect pay data along with hiring, promotion, and termination data from 50 percent of all federal contractors annually.

What's next for EEOC's pay data collection?

After collecting pay data under the EEO-1 Report, Component 2, the EEOC did not seek renewal of Component 2 in the fall of 2019. Then, last summer, the agency asked the National Academies of Science's (NAS) Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) to appoint an expert panel to review and evaluate the quality of the Component 2 compensation data it collected. The panel has been asked to review the agency's methodology for collecting compensation data through the EEO-1 form as well as the quality of the data collected and issue a report with recommendations "to inform the EEOC's assessment of the data and its approach to future data collections."

Currently, the NAS panel, the Panel to Evaluate the Quality of Compensation Data Collected from U.S. Employers by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission through the EEO-1 Form, is in the process of holding public hearings of various stakeholders. The first, held on February 23, 2021, heard from new EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows, Chief Data Officer Chris Haffer, and Dr. Rashida Dorsey.