Posted June 22nd, 2026 in Legal Insights with Tags Pay equity
The End of EEO-1 Reporting? What Employers Stand to Lose
On May 14, 2026, the EEOC formally submitted a proposed rule to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs seeking to rescind EEO-1 reporting requirements, along with several related obligations, signaling the administration’s intent to end annual employer demographic data reporting requirements that have been in place since 1966. If finalized, the move would end the federal government’s decades-long practice of collecting workforce demographic data on race, ethnicity, and sex from covered employers.
The proposal is sweeping. It would affect not only private-sector employers but also state and local governments, public school systems, apprenticeship programs, and unions. It aligns with the Trump administration’s broader effort to scale back DEI initiatives and reduce federal collection of demographic information, and would represent a major departure from prior administrations, including the first Trump administration, which sought to halt pay data reporting but left the underlying demographic report intact.
What the Data Has Actually Been Used For
Before assessing what’s lost, it’s worth understanding what EEO-1 data has provided. The EEOC has used it to identify disparities across demographic groups and job categories within specific companies, guide investigations, and analyze workforce composition and employment trends on a national, regional, and industry-specific basis. Employers themselves have used EEO-1 data to evaluate hiring, promotion, and compensation trends, support pay equity analyses, and respond to shareholder or board requests for diversity metrics. Eliminating the reporting requirement doesn’t eliminate the data’s utility.
Don’t Hit Delete Quite Yet
Despite the headlines, employers should not treat this proposal as a green light to stop tracking workforce data. The regulatory process still has significant runway. The proposal must undergo a 60-day public comment period after OMB approval before a final rule can be published in the Federal Register, meaning the 2026 EEO-1 filing deadline remains a looming reality.
Importantly, although the Department of Justice has recently taken the position that disparate impact theories of liability – and the EEOC guidance that relies on them, including the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures – are unconstitutional, that view has not yet been adopted through binding regulatory change or definitively resolved by the courts. Title VII’s recordkeeping requirements remain in force, and existing EEOC regulations and guidance have not been formally rescinded. Accordingly, employers that discontinue demographic data collection, particularly at the hiring stage, risk creating compliance gaps and potential legal exposure while the law in this area remains unsettled.
A Fractured Compliance Landscape
For multistate employers, the picture grows more complicated. States like California and Illinois have made their own workforce reporting requirements more rigorous, even as federal requirements pull back, creating a fractured compliance environment in which employers must still track demographic data to satisfy state law, regardless of what happens at the federal level.
The practical message for employers is straightforward: continue preparing your demographic data as if the 2026 filing will proceed on schedule, consult employment counsel before making any changes to your reporting practices, and recognize that even in a world without EEO-1, the underlying obligation to understand and document your workforce composition does not go away.