The Trump administration, rolling back an Obama-era regulation to boost pay-data transparency among companies, garnered praise from businesses that complained the rule would impose onerous new reporting requirements and admonition from civil rights groups that said the effort would help expose compensation discrimination.

The Employer Information Form, or EEO-1, is filed by companies with 100 or more employees each year and can be used by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, which enforce federal discrimination laws for federal contractors and businesses, respectively.

On Tuesday, the Office of Management and Budget revoked the approval of a new data collection requirement, set to take effect by the filing deadline in March 2018, that would have required companies to report aggregate pay data by sex, race and ethnicity.

The new requirements, approved in September 2016, required employers for the first time to disclose pay data information to target pay discrimination, particularly gender, to allow the EEOC to identify such practices at companies.

Advocacy groups consider such efforts crucial as pay equity concerns rise. Women working full time are typically paid 80 cents for every dollar paid by male counterparts, according to the Pew Research Center. Gaps are even larger among women of color, with African-American and Latinas making only 63 cents and 54 cents, respectively, on the dollar paid to white men, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights has reported. Targeting such disparities has been the focus of lawsuits and government oversight efforts in recent years.

The civil rights group warned in a letter to OMB Director Mick Mulvaney in April that the new data reporting requirements would be “critically important” to help identify compensation discrimination.

“This action by the Trump-Pence administration blocks the carefully crafted and desperately needed transparency to remedy the unequal pay that is rampant in the American workplace,” said Vanita Gupta, CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “It is part of the ongoing, continuing assault on civil rights in our country. The collection of pay data by sex, race, and ethnicity helps identify compensation discrimination and improve enforcement of laws prohibiting pay discrimination.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Equal Employment Advisory Council and some Republican U.S. senators urged the new administration to block the requirement. Critics raised privacy and cost concerns.

“The commission's new EEO-1 form will place an incredible economic burden on employers to produce information that will not advance the EEOC's mission,” the Chamber said in a letter to OMB in February. “Therefore, rescission of this extraordinarily expensive and useless requirement comports with the President's efforts to ease regulatory burdens on employers and the American public in general.”

Victoria Lipnic, acting chairwoman of the EEOC, said in a statement that she encouraged the Trump budget office to make a decision on the rule to allow companies to be aware of their reporting obligations. She also suggested the decision would not affect the commission's efforts in addressing pay discrepancies.

“The EEOC remains committed to strong enforcement of our federal equal pay laws, a position I have long advocated,” Lipnic said. “Today's decision will not alter the EEOC's enforcement efforts.”

She added: “Going forward, we at the EEOC will review the order and our options. I do hope that this decision will prompt a discussion of other more effective solutions to encourage employers to review their compensation practices to ensure equal pay and close the wage gap. I stand ready to work with Congress, federal agencies, and all stakeholders to achieve that goal.”

The amount of data points that needed to be submitted jumped from 128 to 3,360 with the new requirements. These could create a strain on employers, said Cheryl Behymer, head of the pay equity practice group at Fisher Phillips.

Behymer said her clients were pleased that the requirements were rescinded. She said they would not have adequately measured pay equity because the categories listed were too broad.

“The way the data was going to be collected and presented would have had all these burdens and wouldn't have presented anything of note,” Behymer said. “It's not like it's going to highlight a red flag.”

She said the Trump administration's decision will not likely stop or influence plaintiff attorneys from pursuing pay equity cases.

“There will continue to be a big focus on gender equity and pay issues in general, not just gender but by race and ethnicity,” she said. “Plaintiff attorneys are showing renewed interest and trying to go after pay disparities. It's still a front-burner topic.”