Age Discrimintion

Age Discrimination

Age discrimination is now being reported as early as mid thirties. There are laws that prohibit employment discrimination because of age. Elderly individuals are often discriminated on because older experience candidates are sometimes consider more of an expense for example, Higher salary, pension benefit cost etc, than a younger applicant. Age discrimination causes workers over 45 to be unemployed longer than younger workers. A number of state and federal laws prohibit employers from discriminating against employees and applicants based on age. This means that although stereotypes about older people abound in our culture, employers are not allowed to rely on them when making workplace decisions. Which is why the Age Discrimination Employment Act was created.

The federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act, or ADEA ( 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634), is the primary federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against employees and applicants who are at least 40 years old based on age.The ADEA protects workers from age discrimination in every phase of the employment relationship, including job advertisements, interviewing, hiring, compensation, promotion, discipline, job evaluations, demotion, training, job assignments, and termination. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the ADEA prohibits practices and policies that are seemingly neutral, but have a disproportionately negative impact on older workers disparate impact , as well as those that explicitly treat older workers worse than younger workers disparate treatment. Not only does the ADEA prohibit employers from discriminating against older workers in favor of those who are younger than 40, it also prohibits employers from discriminating among older workers. An example of this is , an employer cannot hire a 43-year-old rather than a 53-year-old simply based on age.

Also, the federal Older Workers Benefit Protection Act, or OWBPA, amended the ADEA to make it illegal for employers to...