Protect Older Job Applicants Act of 2021
Floor Speech
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Ms. BONAMICI. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 716, I call up the bill (H.R. 3992) to amend the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 to prohibit employers from limiting, segregating, or classifying applicants for employment, and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
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Ms. BONAMICI. 3992, the Protect Older Job Applicants Act of 2021.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Protect Older Job Applicants Act of 2021.
Protecting all workers from workplace discrimination is of the utmost importance. Unfortunately, older workers have disproportionately been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic with more workers over the age of 65 leaving the workforce in 2020 than in any year over the last six decades.
The Protect Older Job Applicants Act of 2021 would help address discrimination older workers face in the hiring process, and it is an especially important step toward helping older workers reenter the workforce as the Nation recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Currently, the disparate impact provision in the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the ADEA, covers older employees seeking relief from age discrimination, but not older job applicants. The bill we are considering today would clarify the disparate impact provision and make clear that older job applicants, not just older employees, are protected.
This bill is a commonsense fix to the ADEA that would help protect workers from ageist hiring practices. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a Statement of Administrative Policy in support of H.R. 3992, the Protect Older Job Applicants Act of 2021. Statement of Administration Policy H.R. 3992--Protect Older Job Applicants Act of 2021--Rep. Garcia, D-TX, and 62 cosponsors
The Administration supports House passage of the Protect Older Job Applicants (POJA) Act of 2021. The legislation would amend the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967, which prohibits, among other actions, age-based discrimination in hiring, to specifically prohibit employers from limiting, segregating, or classifying job applicants on the basis of age.
The POJA Act of 2021 provides a critical clarification to support older Americans during recruitment and hiring, ensuring the ADEA's nondiscrimination protections extend fully to older job applicants.
Workplace age discrimination, including at the application stage, prevents people from fully accessing the American dream and limits the contributions that they can make to our shared prosperity. Ensuring equitable access to employment is a priority for the Administration. The Administration supports this legislation that protects older job applicants.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct the record on a couple of points. In fact, the committee did have a hearing on this subject on March 18, 2021, in the Subcommittee of Civil Rights and Human Services. It was a hearing called ``Fighting for Fairness: Examining Legislation to Confront Workplace Discrimination.''
Additionally, my colleague's argument simply misstates the law with regard to places like college campuses or online recruitment. For example, employers will always have the freedom to choose the time, place, and manner in which they recruit. Whether it be on a college campus or LinkedIn, employers face no risk of liability if they can show it was based on reasonable factors other than age, such as a larger pool of highly trained individuals from which to recruit.
The argument that anyone who wasn't available to be recruited on LinkedIn or enrolled in college would be able to sue an employer for age discrimination is a misunderstanding of this law, Mr. Speaker.
Finally, Title VII has outlawed disparate impact discrimination since 1972. If there are any doubts that these sorts of laws would wipe out recruiting practices, we would have seen those consequences. In fact, this law is to correct a couple of circuits that have gone a different way from the rest of the country. In 9 out of 11 circuits, it is already the law. So any parade of horribles that my colleague is suggesting, we would have seen that already and we have not.
Garcia), the sponsor of the bill.
Mr. Speaker, I want to note that the reality is that there is substantial evidence that older workers are routinely harmed by plausibly neutral but age-discriminate hiring practices.
For example, in 2017, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco conducted a study on age discrimination and hiring by sending similar resumes to 13,000 job openings in 12 cities, totaling 40,000 applicants. For all five job position types they studied, the callback rate was higher for younger applicants and lower for older applicants, consistent with age discrimination in hiring.
Jackson Lee).
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Speaker and I thank the manager very much, and I thank Congresswoman Garcia of Texas for her leadership and sponsorship of H.R. 3992, Protect Older Job Applicants Act. It is long overdue and an important initiative.
Words from Patti Temple Rocks, communications professional, really capture what this bill is about: ``I was still on my game, but I was being moved . . . to make room for someone younger.''
Let me be very clear. There is a great opportunity for all of us to be employed, and that is what this legislation says. It is specifically making sure that every American worker is protected. Specifically, this bill will make it unlawful to limit, segregate, or classify job applicants in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his or her status as a job applicant because of such individual's age.
This bill will include the job application process in ADEA's antidiscrimination provisions and, again, disallow anyone from classifying you and discriminating because of age.
H.R. 3992 would give external candidates the express right under Federal law to bring these types of claims against employers. What I would simply say to my friends, this is to prohibit but it is also to prevent or intervene so that employers can know the right things to do.
According to AARP, one in four workers age 45 and older have been subjected to negative comments about their age from supervisors or coworkers, and 76 percent age discrimination find that as a hurdle in helping to find a new job.
We also recognize that there is a lot of talent with older workers. Paradoxically, what most companies do not seem to understand is that older workers possess a depth of knowledge and experience that is worth paying for and is not easily replaced and can be tapped in from many different ways; and, as well, having a mix of people of all generations, able and ready, and disabled, if you will, to work alongside of each other.
``People walk out of companies now with an enormous amount of intellectual property in their heads,'' says Paul Rupert, the founder and CEO of Respectful Exits, a nonprofit consulting firm that is raising corporate awareness about age discrimination. ``They know things that are essential to the company's success, and if that knowledge is not captured and transmitted to the next generation, that company is losing a tremendous chunk of capital, and it will eventually pay a price.''
So what is the point? The point is to recognize how important it is to ensure that we don't discriminate. In fact, women age 40 are finding that if they lose a job they, too, are being discriminated against in terms of getting a job.
I want to, again, salute the sponsor of this legislation, the manager of this legislation, and of course, the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, Chairman Scott, along with all of those who supported this to ensure this is about fairness.
As a member of the Judiciary Committee, we always promote equal justice. We partner with the Education and Labor Committee in its work on equal justice. So this is legislation that provides opportunities for equal justice, and I would ask my colleagues to support this bill, H.R. 3992, Protect Older Job Applicants Act. But more importantly, let's protect the intellectual capital of all Americans, every job applicant.
Let there not be discrimination against you for race or color or creed or disability or gender or anything else, and certainly have respect for that intellectual capital that older American workers bring to the workforce. Let's celebrate it; let's have a good time with it; and let's build our companies on all of this genius that happens to be the American workers now today.
Mr. Speaker, I ask for support of the legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3992, the ``Protect Older Job Applicants Act,'' which will amend the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, which prohibits age-based discrimination in hiring, to specifically prohibit employers from limiting, segregating, or classifying job applicants on the basis of age.
People of all ages, but especially older applicants, must be protected from discriminatory practices and loopholes that hurt their chances to get a job, especially as we have seen that older American workers have disproportionately experienced long-term unemployment in the COVID economy.
The federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967 was passed to prohibit age-based discrimination for current employees and job applicants.
However, two federal circuit court decisions over the last five years have ruled that some provisions of the ADEA's federal anti-age discrimination protections only applied to current employees, not job applicants.
In 2016, the 11th Circuit case Villarreal v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company held that the ADEA disparate impact statute only covers employees, but not older applicants, and in 2019, the 7th Circuit adopted the same interpretation in Kleber v. CareFusion Corporation.
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review the appellate court decisions.
Currently, employers, especially those within the 7th and 11th Circuits, have a valid defense to claims under the ADEA where external job applicants allege they have been negatively impacted by hiring practices on the basis of their age.
H.R. 3992 would give external candidates the express right under federal law to bring these types of claims against employers.
This bill will include the job application process in ADEA's antidiscrimination provisions.
Specifically, this bill will make it unlawful ``to limit, segregate, or classify . . . [job applicants] in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as . . . [a job applicant], because of such individual's age.''
According to the AARP, 1 in 4 workers age 45 and older have been subjected to negative comments about their age from supervisors or coworkers, and 76 percent see age discrimination as a hurdle to finding a new job.
In one University of California, Irvine, study, resumes were sent out on behalf of more than 40,000 fictitious applicants of different ages for thousands of low-skill jobs like janitors, administrative assistants and retail sales clerks in 12 cities.
This study found that the older the applicant was, the fewer callbacks the applicant received.
This study also found that age discrimination has the highest impact on women, who suffer more age discrimination then men starting in their 40s.
According to David Neumark, a professor of economics who oversaw the study, ``[t]he evidence of age discrimination against women . . . pops out in every study'' conducted on age discrimination.
Ageism is still very much present in our society, and it is important we acknowledge that we still have much work to do to correct this bias and give every job applicant a fair and equal opportunity when applying for a job.
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Ms. BONAMICI. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers on the underlying bill, and I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. BONAMICI. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close. I do want to note with regard to my colleague's remarks, I believe there is a House rule about not impugning the motives of people who are here on this distinguished floor of the House of Representatives.
Older workers are suffering from a higher rate of long-term unemployment versus their younger peers. According to AARP, this has produced devastating consequences during the COVID-19 pandemic, as 74 percent of workers aged 40 to 65 who have lost a job in 2020 reported being unemployed for more than 6 months.
Again, Mr. Speaker, this is already the law of the land except for people in two Federal circuits here in the United States. This bill is intended to make a uniform law across the country.
Passing the bipartisan Protect Older Job Applicants Act should be a priority of every Member of Congress. Republicans and Democrats worked together just a few months ago to advance the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act. This bipartisan effort was a major step toward ensuring older workers can assert legal claims to hold employers accountable for disparate treatment that results in age discrimination.
However, we cannot defeat age discrimination in employment if we leave older job applicants behind. Without equal protections, older workers are still being denied job opportunities because of hiring practices that, while not intentionally discriminatory, ultimately exclude workers based on their age.
Providing job applicants with the tools to seek justice for discriminatory hiring practices is not just the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do. In 2018 our economy missed out on as much as $850 billion in gross domestic product because older workers who wished to switch jobs, grow in their jobs, or reenter the workforce were denied that opportunity.
The Protect Older Job Applicants Act addresses this gap in an important ADEA protection and helps older workers eliminate barriers that prevent them from fully contributing to our economy.
More broadly, this legislation will deliver on the promise of the ADEA and help ensure that all older workers, regardless of whether they are looking for a job or already have one, are equally protected against age discrimination under the law in every part of the country.
I want to again thank Ms. Garcia for her leadership. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes,'' and I yield back the balance of my time.
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