The Advisors' Blog

– Liz Dunshee

Yesterday, in addition to posting its annual “Diversity Report,” Intel made waves by also publishing on its website the pay data that it recently filed with the EEOC. The data covers over 50,000 US workers and provides much greater detail than the other “pay equity” and “pay gap” info that we’ve seen to-date. Here’s a few points that the company calls out with the disclosure:

– This is pay data from the years of 2017 and 2018. Therefore, it does not align with Intel’s 2019 Diversity and Inclusion Representation numbers.

– The data in this report is collected from employees’ W2 box 1 earnings, which includes all taxable income and has not been normalized for factors such as hire date, shift differentials, commissions and employee retirement contributions. For example, employees hired after the start of the year will appear to have lower earnings due to their W2 only including pay information collected from their start date. Similarly, if employees contribute more to their 401(K) then their box 1 earnings for the year will be lower.

– Intel is committed to global pay equity and uses best-in-class analysis on an ongoing basis to ensure fair pay irrespective of gender or race/ethnicity. Intel has recently achieved gender pay equity globally and continues to maintain race/ethnicity pay equity in the U.S. We will continue to perform pay equity assessments moving forward and close any identified gaps. Pay Equity is defined as the average pay gap between employees of different genders or races/ethnicities in the same or similar roles after accounting for legitimate business factors that can explain differences in pay such as performance, time at grade level and tenure.

Companies aren’t required to make the EEOC data public – and as I’ve blogged, this might be the only year the EEOC collects the “Component 2” pay data (at least in this form). For Intel, this disclosure follows a settlement a couple months back with the Department of Labor to resolve pay discrimination allegations – and so far, the company is facing some criticisms about pay disparities that the data highlights (see this Bloomberg article for lots of graphs). But the article also suggests that shareholders who are focused on narrowing pay gaps are happy with Intel’s transparency.