(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-08) joined Congresswomen Lois Frankel (FL-21) and Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) and more than 50 additional colleagues in sending a letter to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) opposing its decision to halt progress towards closing the gender and racial wage gap.

The Members wrote:

“In 2016, the Obama Administration directed the EEOC to collect pay data from large companies. This data is vital to helping the EEOC detect patterns of pay discrimination and enforce equal pay laws. The EEOC’s decision not to comply with this directive raises serious questions about whether the Administration will continue to protect workers from pay discrimination.”

“How can we reach equality for American workers when they won’t even look at the numbers?” said Congresswoman Frankel. “Collecting pay data is a crucial part of the fight for wage equality and must be restored.”

“It is outrageous that the Trump Administration is trying to stop collecting critical equal pay data from large companies through the EEO-1 form,” said Congresswoman DeLauro. “As we have seen from the Senate’s continued inaction on the House-passed Paycheck Fairness Act, Trump officials are completely uninterested in addressing pay gaps that leave women and people of color behind economically. Equal pay data collection is a critical tool that allows the EEOC to identify pay discrimination and encourage companies to correct pay disparities. Our federal agencies need to actively engage and crack down on bad actors, not stand on the sidelines while women and people of color get paid less for the same work.”

To read the full letter, click here.

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