Civil and Human Rights Coalition Urges Administration to Allow Collection of Vital Pay Data

WASHINGTON – Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued the following statement after the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced it would be halting the collection of equal pay data by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC):

“This action by the Trump-Pence administration blocks the carefully crafted and desperately needed transparency to remedy the unequal pay that is rampant in the American workplace. It is part of the ongoing, continuing assault on civil rights in our country. The collection of pay data by sex, race, and ethnicity helps identify compensation discrimination and improve enforcement of laws prohibiting pay discrimination. Concrete data empowers us all, especially those entrusted with enforcing the nation’s civil rights laws. We urge the Trump-Pence administration to allow this vital data collection to move forward. Addressing pay discrimination will benefit individual workers and their families, businesses, and the economy.”

In April, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights sent a letter to OMB Director John M. Mulvaney opposing a request by the Chamber of Commerce and others to eliminate the inclusion of salary data as part of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) data collection by means of the Employer Information Report (EEO-1 Form). That data collection was previously approved by OMB at the request of the EEOC. The letter is available here.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its 200-plus member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.