The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission saw the number of employment discrimination charges it received spike by nearly 20% in fiscal year 2022, which comes as the Biden administration has proposed a budget increase for the civil rights agency.
The EEOC received 73,485 new charges in FY 2022, up from 61,331 in FY 2021, according to the agency’s performance report released Monday. The report marks the first time the agency disclosed its charge statistics for the past fiscal year.
The increased workload came “as the nation emerged from the pandemic,” the EEOC said in its announcement. The number of charges received in the past fiscal year were more in line with the agency’s pre-pandemic charge levels, which were about 72,000 and 76,000 in fiscal years 2019 and 2018, respectively.
The EEOC also obtained $513 million in monetary benefits for victims of discrimination in FY 2022, up from $484 million in FY 2021. The agency secures those funds either through mediation, settlements, or litigation resolutions.
Additionally, the agency managed to increase rewards for victims while spending less time in court: it filed 91 lawsuits in FY 2022, compared to 116 lawsuits filed in FY 2021.
The EEOC also increased its workforce the past fiscal year, which coincides with its nearly $15 million budget increase between FY 2021 and FY 2022. The EEOC filled 352 new positions and 500 total staff vacancies during that time, according to the report.
President Joe Biden’s budget blueprint released last week would give the agency $481 million, a $26 million increase from its 2023 enacted budget of $455 million, according to the budget justification also published by the EEOC Monday. EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows has previously said the agency would focus increased resources on hiring for “front-line” positions, such as investigators, mediators, and field attorneys.
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