At a February 16, 2011 public meeting, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission examined what it described as “the emerging practice of excluding unemployed persons from applicant pools.”  An EEOC spokesperson acknowledged that the agency had no official data regarding the prevalence of the (perceived) problem.  But the agency believes that such a practice has an adverse impact on some minority groups.

I have two thoughts on this.  Thought number one:  Until there’s some hard evidence that this practice (which I’ve never heard of) exists, why doesn’t the EEOC focus on discrimination against statutorily defined protected categories, instead of making up new ones?

Thought number two:  By definition, the unemployed make up 100% of the population that is out of work.  And if you provide an unemployed person a job, you remove them from that protected category.  So is it possible to remedy job discrimination against the unemployed?