EEOC Charge Data by State Map

Following up on my last post, here is a map I generated of the per capita EEOC charges filed by state. The darker the state, the greater the per capita EEOC charges filed.



You can see that the above map is much different than the following map which shows total charges filed by state. The darker he state, the more charges filed in that state

The top map is based on the following data, which represents the percentage of charges in a state as compared to the value expected by its population. A couple of states, Maine, Montana and Vermont have too few EEOC charges filed to give an accurate rating on this map.

Alabama	209%
Mississippi	189%
Arkansas	183%
New Mexico	182%
Georgia	181%
Tennessee	163%
North Carolina	161%
Nevada	151%
Illinois	149%
Louisiana	145%
Arizona	142%
Oklahoma	142%
Indiana	140%
Florida	135%
Virginia	125%
Texas	124%
Maryland	124%
Colorado	124%
Kentucky	121%
Missouri	120%
Pennsylvania	106%
Kansas	99%
South Carolina	95%
Michigan	85%
Ohio	84%
Minnesota	71%
Hawaii	70%
Delaware	69%
New Jersey	64%
New York	61%
Washington	60%
California	60%
Wyoming	56%
Wisconsin	55%
North Dakota	48%
Alaska	43%
South Dakota	38%
Rhode Island	29%
Connecticut	26%
Oregon	25%
Massachusetts	25%
New Hampshire	24%
Utah	23%
Iowa	21%
Idaho	20%
Nebraska	17%
West Virginia	17%
Vermont	0%
Maine	0%
Montana	0%

EEOC Charges by State

The EEOC has recently released data of charges filed by state for 2011. As others, like Mike Maslanka  have noted, you can't try to read too deeply into the data because in some states there are more favorable state agencies for charging parties to bring their allegations. And furthermore, the EEOC put out its statistics largely as the percentage of the nations' charge total coming out of each state.   Because of the wide variation in state populations, such percentages don't mean a whole lot.  However, neither of these factors has stopped headlines from proclaiming that Texas led the nation in EEOC Charges.
It is true that Texas led the nation in charges with 10% of all filed in 2011. Of course, Texas is one of the largest states, and with 8% of the nation's population, it makes sense that it would be a leader in EEOC charges.

You can see the EEOC's full data set here. Below is a chart that I made based on that data. I have taken some liberties with it, deleting many of the columns and adding in a couple of my own to make for easier comparison. I left only those columns which show the percentage of national charges in each state and I added a column to the EEOC's data showing the percentage of the US population living in each state. That column is to gives context to the EEOC's numbers. I also added a column for the percentage of the minority population of the US living in each state. Again, this column gives context to the EEOC's numbers with the premise that, all things being equal, where there are more employees and applicants in a protected class, there are likely going to be more cases of alleged discrimination. For instance, you can see that while Texas has almost 13% of the nation's minority population, it only has 10.2% of the nation's race-based EEOC charges. Besides race, I do not know the extent to which other factors creating a protected class vary significantly by state. The number of employees hailing from foreign nations probably varies with state. I remember hearing that men outnumber women in Alaska significantly, but I don't think there is much difference in sex ratios in other states. It seems like disabilities shouldn't vary much by state.  States like Florida and Arizona have large senior populations, but that is largely due to retirement moves, so that shouldn't affect the EEOC charges significantly.  Religion would have state and regional differences, but I don't know how you would go about comparing it.