For Immediate Release – July 24, 2025
Illinois Reinforces Commitment to Pay Transparency and Equity
Amendment Removes Obsolete Federal Reporting Requirement
SPRINGFIELD – Governor JB Pritzker has signed HB 2488 into law, simplifying the Illinois Equal Pay Act of 2003 by eliminating all references to a federally-mandated program that requires employers to provide wage data to the federal government.
“These legislative changes promote consistency and simplify pay transparency reporting in Illinois,” said Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) Director Jane Flanagan. “While it may be challenging to keep up with shifts in federal law, Illinois maintains its steadfast commitment to promoting transparency in pay practices and ensuring that Illinoisans receive equal pay for substantially similar work, regardless of sex or race.”
In 2021, Gov. Pritzker signed into law legislation requiring businesses with 100 or more employees to provide IDOL with certain payroll data. The intent of that 2021 amendment was to allow the State of Illinois to review employer pay practices for disparities through the Equal Pay Registration Certificate program (EPRC).
Under EPRC, every two years private employers with 100 or more employees in Illinois are required to submit employee wage data to IDOL along with a certification that, among other things, their average compensation for female and minority employees is not consistently below the average compensation for male and non-minority employees.
The EPRC reporting requirement was initially linked to whether an employer had to submit a federally mandated Annual Employer Information Report EEO-1 report to a federal agency.
After implementing the law, IDOL determined that the EEO-1 form did not provide meaningful data for EPRC purposes and was creating uncertainty for employers. In 2023 IDOL administratively suspended the requirement that employers include EEO-1 forms in their EPRC submissions. HB 2488 simply formalizes this change by deleting all EEO-1 references from the Illinois Equal Pay Act.
