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Summary of differences between federal and state regulations
Pay transparency
Effective January 1, 2025, employers with 15 or more employees must include pay ranges in postings for jobs in Illinois. This new requirement, an Amendment to the Illinois Equal Pay Act, was signed into law on August 11, 2023. The Amendment will only apply when employers create job postings and does not require employers to make such postings in the first place.
Employer defined
“Employer” means an individual, partnership, corporation, association, business, trust, person, or entity for whom 4 or more employees are gainfully employed in Illinois and includes the State of Illinois, any state officer, department, or agency, any unit of local government, and any school district.
Unlawful employment practices
The unlawful employment practices and exemptions are similar to those under the federal Equal Pay Act. An employer may not discriminate based on sex among employees performing the same or substantially the same work under like working conditions in fixing the employees’ wages and benefits, except where the payment is made under:
- a seniority system;
- a merit system;
- a system that measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or
- a differential based on any other factor other than sex or a factor that would constitute unlawful discrimination under the Illinois Human Rights Act.
Employees must file a complaint within one year of the date that wages were underpaid. For this purpose, each time wages are underpaid will establish the point at which the statute of limitations begins.
Recordkeeping
A covered employer must make and preserve records, including but not limited to: name, address, occupation and wages paid to each employee, payroll records and records of other forms of compensation, dates of hire, dates of promotion and dates of pay increases. In addition, the employer must preserve any records made in the regular course of the business operation that relate to personnel records, employee qualifications for hire, promotion, transfer, discharge or other disciplinary action, wage rates, skills testing certifications, job evaluations, job descriptions, merit systems, seniority systems, written job offers, individual employment contracts, collective bargaining agreements, description of practices or other matters that describe or explain the basis for payment of any wage differential to employees of the opposite sex by the same employer and that may be pertinent to a determination whether the differential is based on a factor other than sex. These records must be preserved for not less than 5 years.
With SB 1480 signed into law, Illinois employers have a few years to ramp up their pay practice compliance efforts to hit two target dates:
- Beginning January 1, 2023, employers’ EEO-1 reports will be published on a state website for the public to view. This transparency in pay data reporting will give interested persons a glimpse at employers’ diversity efforts.
- By March 24, 2024, most employers will be required to have an equal pay registration certificate to show they’re in compliance with the state’s Equal Pay Act.
These laws generally affect employers with 100 or more employees. Illinois and California are the only two states as of now (2021) that will require this kind of pay data to be collected by employers and reported to the state.
State
Contact
Regulations
Chapter 820 Illinois Compiled Statutes (ILCS) 112, Equal Pay Act of 2003
Illinois Admin. Code Title 56, Chapter I, Subchapter b, Part 320, Equal Pay in Employment
Illinois Admin. Code Title 56, Chapter XI, Part 5210, Sections 5210.50 and 5210.60
Federal
Contact
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
Regulations
29 CFR Part 1620, The Equal Pay Act
29 CFR 1621, Procedures — The Equal Pay Act