The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) made public a proposed revision to the Employer Information Report (EEO-1) to include collecting pay data from employers, including federal contractors, with more than 100 employees. This new data will assist the agency in identifying possible pay discrimination and assist employers in promoting equal pay in their workplaces. The revised EEO-1 will be announced in conjunction with the White House commemoration of the seventh anniversary of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

EEO-1 data provides the federal government with workforce profiles from private sector employers by race, ethnicity, sex, and job category. This proposal would add aggregate data on pay ranges and hours worked to the information collected, beginning with the September 2017 report. Proposed changes are available for inspection on the Federal Register website and will be officially published in the Federal Register on February 1, 2016. Members of the public have 60 days from that date April 1, 2016, to submit comments.

The new pay data would provide EEOC and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) of the Department of Labor with insight into pay disparities across industries and occupations and strengthen federal efforts to combat discrimination. This pay data would allow EEOC to compile and publish aggregated data that will help employers in conducting their own analysis of their pay practices to facilitate voluntary compliance. The agencies would use this pay data to assess complaints of discrimination, focus agency investigations, and identify existing pay disparities that may warrant further examination.

EEOC's current proposal is in response to recommendations from independent studies and the Commission's work with the President's National Equal Pay Task Force, which proposed new data collection requirements to combat pay discrimination in the workplace.