Determining the Fairness of Salary in Public Employment

Establishing effective equal opportunity programs and policies has become a major responsibility of the personnel function in government, and a particularly sensitive issue is salary. It is critical that the administrator develop procedures for assessing salary differentials which can: 1. identify inequities on a routine basis so that they may be settled before litigation occurs, 2. create the basis for a strong and rational legal defense when appropriate, 3. provide a fair and empirical basis for monetary settlements when appropriate, and 4. deter frivolous or nuisance claims. One approach for the administrator is the use of a regression model to determine the appropriate salary level for an individual. Such a model was developed for white, male scientists and engineers at one center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Values can be entered for an individual into the formula that was developed on the majority group. Any discrepancy between predicted and actual salary could be accounted for by 2 hypotheses: 1. poor performance on factors not included in the regression formula, or 2. illegal discrimination in salary assignment. However, the use of regression for salary evaluation is limited to those situations where there exist relatively large numbers of individuals in reasonably comparable jobs.