Court Orders EEO-1 Pay Data by September 30

Author: Robert S. Teachout, XpertHR Legal Editor

UPDATE - May 8, 2019: The EEOC published an announcement in the May 3, 2019, Federal Register stating that it will collect EEO-1 Component 2 data for calendar year 2017, in addition to the 2018 data due by the September 30, 2019 deadline. Further information is available on the EEOC's EEO-1 Survey web page.

April 26, 2019

A federal judge's ruling on Thursday set a September 30 deadline for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to complete collection of an employer's Form W-2 data, sorted by race, ethnicity and gender for the annual EEO-1 Report.

The EEO-1 (formally known as the Employer Information Report EEO-1) requires employers with 100 or more employees to report the number of individuals employed by job category, sex, race and ethnicity (Component 1 data). The Obama administration changed the EEO-1 reporting form in September 2016 to include categorized Form W-2 income and hours worked pay data (Component 2 data) in an effort to counter pay discrimination.

But in September 2017, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued an immediate stay of the revised form in order to review the pay data component. The EEOC instructed employers not to report Component 2 data when filing their EEO-1 report, but said Component 1 data was still due by the March 31 deadline. It later extended that reporting deadline to May 31 due to a lapse in appropriations caused by the partial government shutdown. The National Women's Law Center and other advocacy groups filed a lawsuit, claiming the stay harmed their ability to gather information needed to promote equal pay.

The EEOC proposed the September 30 deadline after the federal district court for the District of Columbia vacated the OMB's decision to stay the collection of Form W-2 wage and hour data in the annual survey. The federal judge issued the order agreeing to the proposed deadline after plaintiffs in the case agreed to withdraw their challenge to the September 30 proposal.

The ruling also made clear that the EEOC will have to collect 2017 data as well. However, the court will allow the EEOC to collect Component 2 data for 2019 and submit it in 2020 instead of collecting 2017 Component 2 data. The agency must report to the court by May 3 whether the second year data will be for the 2017 or 2019 EEO-1 reporting cycle period.