About 93% of applicants hired for 92,193 federal jobs under the U.S. government’s Pathways Program from May 2012 to July 2017 were under the age of 40.
Only 7.16% of applicants hired under the program were over the age of 40, according to statistics released by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) pursuant to a Freedom of Information request.
The data shows the federal government is engaged in a practice of age discrimination in hiring that dwarfs anything in the private sector and is unprecedented since the enactment fifty years ago of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967.
The OPM released the data on Nov. 28 pursuant to a FOI request filed by a job seeker who was rejected for a federal job because he was not a recent college graduate. Given that publicity about workers who demand their legal rights often makes them a pariah to potential employers, the job seeker’s identity is not disclosed here.
The federal government is engaged in a pattern of age discrimination in hiring that is unprecedented in modern history.
Barack H. Obama, the nation’s first African-American president, created the Pathways “Recent Graduates” Program through an executive order in 2010. Obama’s executive order operates as an exemption to t
he ADEA for federal agencies. The OPM issued regulations and the program began operating in May 2012.
The ADEA prohibits the consideration of age in hiring except in limited circumstances such as when it involves a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the particular business or where the differentiation is based on reasonable factors other than age (i.e, cost). These were not considerations with respect to the Pathways program.
The OPM at the time disingenuously implied the hiring program did not involve age discrimination because anyone of any age can be a recent graduate. Of course, the vast majority of recent graduates are and always have been under the age of 40.
The Pathways program is form of age discrimination under the “disparate impact” theory, which is invoked when a seemingly neutral policy results in a disproportionate negative impact on a protected class.
The U.S. Congress passed the ADEA 50 years ago to protect individuals aged 40 and older from irrational and harmful employment discrimination. In signing the order, then President Lyndon B. Johnson said the ADEA’s purpose was to insure the most qualified applicant got the job.
Obama signed the order in the wake of Wall Street’s collapse and the Great Recession, when older workers were disproportionately mired in long-term unemployment.
A spokesperson for the OPM said in July that the program doesn’t discriminate because it is legal and the program will continue until Obama’s executive order is rescinded by the sitting President.
Unique Perspective of Young People
Without offering any supporting data, Obama said the order was needed to remove “barriers” in hiring younger workers caused by civil service regulations and “to achieve a workforce that represents all segments of society.” Obama also said he wanted to “infuse” the federal government with the “enthusiasm, talents and unique perspective” of young people.
Union rep. warned OPM in 2011 the program was discriminatory and violated the ADEA and merit selection principles.
In an Oct. 4, 2011 letter to the OPM, Angela Bailey, a spokesperson for the National Treasury Employees Union, said there can be “no doubt” the Pathways program targeted younger applicants ” by design.” Furthermore, she said, the program was “intended to, and will, discriminate against older applicants” in violation of the ADEA and merit selection principles. She denied the government faced barriers to hiring young people and questioned the government’s competency with respect to recruitment. She said the absence of a cap on hiring under the program was the “single most disappointing aspect” of the program.
The OPM’s Merit System and Accountability Office released incomplete age data from Pathways program last summer that only covered hiring between May 2012 through June 2014. The OPM claimed, falsely, that it lacked more recent figures. The persistent FOIA applicant filed an appeal and requested the later statistics.
OPM General Counsel Theodore M. Cooperstein writes that his office “determined that OPM does have additional responsive data regarding Pathways Programs appointees” after 2014.
The statistics include all individuals hired under the Pathways Program, including recent graduates, Presidential Fellows (who also are required to have obtained an advanced degree within two years) and interns. The numbers are not broken down by category.
The federal government is the nation’s largest employer.
Under President Obama’s directive, “A Recent Graduate is an individual who obtained a qualifying associates, bachelors, master’s, professional, doctorate, vocational or technical degree or certificate from a qualifying educational institution,within the previous 2 years …” 5 CFR 362.302(a),
