For the first time ever, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently released a state-by-state analysis of charges received. The statistics cover 2009-2011.
The top five states receiving the most charges were, in order, Texas (9952), Florida (8088), California (7166), Illinois (6098), and Georgia (5599). Commentators have noted these states’ large populations generally, as well as high numbers of individuals most vulnerable to discrimination, as contributing to the charge numbers. Indiana ranked 13th in the number of charges filed with the EEOC with a total of 2940 charge filings in 2011.* Indiana’s total equaled 2.9 percent of all EEOC charges filed nationwide in 2011.
According to the EEOC, 252 fewer charges were filed in Indiana in 2011 than were filed in 2010 (3192). Retaliation was the most common charge alleged in Indiana (filed in 33.5 percent of cases), followed by race discrimination (32 percent), sex discrimination (28.7 percent), disability discrimination (28.6 percent), age discrimination (22.2 percent), national origin discrimination (7.2 percent), and religious discrimination (2.8 percent). National origin discrimination is the only type of bias that saw a significant increase in charges from 2010 to 2011.
With almost 100,000 charges filed with the EEOC every year, and over 11 new EEOC charge complaints on average being filed every workday in Indiana, employers must remain vigilant with regard to their hiring, firing, and other employment decisions and practices. *It is important to note that these statistics do not account for charges filed and processed solely by state agencies, such as the Indiana Civil Rights Commission.
