Top 10 Employment Discrimination Claims in 2016

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) said it resolved 97,443 charges of employment discrimination in fiscal year 2016 and secured more than $482 million for victims of discrimination in private, federal and state and local government workplaces.

Charges of employer retaliation, racial bias and discrimination due to disability were the most common charges.

EEOC legal staff resolved 139 lawsuits and filed 86 lawsuits alleging discrimination in fiscal year 2016. The lawsuits filed by EEOC included 55 individual suits and 31 suits involving multiple victims or discrimin­atory policies.

The $482 million recovered for victims of discrimination included $347.9 million for victims of employment discrimination in private sector and state and local government workplaces through mediation, conciliation, and settlements; $52.2 million for workers harmed by discriminatory practices obtained through litigation; and $82 million for federal employees and applicants.

At the end of the fiscal year, EEOC had 168 cases on its active docket, of which 48 (28.6 per­cent) involve challenges to systemic discrimination and an additional 32 (19 percent) are multiple-victim cases. EEOC said it achieved a successful outcome in 90.6 percent of all suit resolutions.

The EEOC said it continued to work with employers through mediation to resolve charges voluntarily. EEOC’s mediation program achieved a success rate of over 76 percent – saving resources for employers, workers and the agency.

EEOC resolved 1,650 charges and recovered $4.4 million for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals who filed sex discrimination charges with EEOC in fiscal year 2016. Additionally, the data show a steady increase in the four years the agency has been collecting LGBT charge data. From fiscal year 2013 through fiscal year 2016, nearly 4,000 charges were filed with EEOC by LGBT individuals alleging sex discrimination, and EEOC recovered $10.8 million for victims of discrimination.

The top 10 employment charges handled by EEOC in 2016, in descending order, were:

• Retaliation: 42,018 (45.9 percent of all charges filed)
• Race: 32,309 (35.3 percent)
• Disability: 28,073 (30.7 percent)
• Sex: 26,934 (29.4 percent)
• Age: 20,857 (22.8 percent)
• National Origin: 9,840 (10.8 percent)
• Religion: 3,825 (4.2 percent)
• Color: 3,102 (3.4 percent)
• Equal Pay Act: 1,075 (1.2 percent)
• Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act: 238 (.3 percent)

The percentages add up to more than 100 because some charges allege multiple bases.

Source: EEOC