1. Did the Court’s decision make it easier for older workers to sue for age discrimination on the job?
2. Disparate impact claims exist where an employer’s facially neutral employment practices, such as the pay scale, benefits adjustments, or layoffs, though making no adverse references to age have a significantly adverse or disparate impact on older employees, and the specifically identified practices in question are not shown to be based on reasonable factors other than age. What does the Court’s ruling allowing disparate impact claims mean for employers when setting policies that may affect their older workers?
3. How did the Court decide the underlying controversy between the city and the older workers?

[The City of Jackson, Mississippi, adopted a pay plan giving raises to all police officers and police dispatchers. In an effort to bring starting salaries up to regional averages, officers with less than five years' service received proportionately greater raises than those with more seniority, and most officers over age 40 had more than five years of service. Petitioners, a group of older officers, filed suit under the ADEA, claiming that they were adversely affected by the plan because of their age. The district court granted the city summary judgment. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit ruled that disparate impact claims are categorically unavailable under the ADEA. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.]
STEVENS, J. …
During the deliberations that preceded the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress considered and rejected proposed amendments that would have included older workers among the classes protected from employment discrimination. Congress did, however, request the Secretary of Labor to "make a full and complete study of the factors which might tend to result in discrimination in employment because of age and of the consequences of such discrimination on the economy and individuals affected." The Secretary's report, submitted in response to Congress' request, noted that there was little discrimination arising from dislike or intolerance of older people, but that
"arbitrary" discrimination did result from certain age limits (hereinafter Wirtz Report).

In response to that report Congress directed the Secretary to propose remedial legislation, and then acted favorably on his proposal. As enacted in 1967, § 4(a)(2) of the ADEA, now codified as 29 U.S.C. § 623(a)(2), provided that it shall be unlawful for an employer "to limit, segregate, or classify his employees in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's age.…" 81 Stat. 603. Except for substitution of the word "age" for the words "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin," the language of that provision in the ADEA is identical to that found in § 703(a)(2) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII). Other provisions of the ADEA also parallel the earlier statute. Unlike Title VII, however, § 4(f)(1) of the ADEA, 81 Stat. 603, contains language that significantly narrows its coverage by permitting any "otherwise prohibited" action "where the differentiation is based on reasonable factors other than age"
(hereinafter RFOA provision).

In determining whether the ADEA authorizes disparate-impact claims, we begin with the premise that when Congress uses the same language in two statutes having similar purposes, particularly when one is enacted shortly after the other, it is appropriate to presume that Congress intended that text to have the same meaning in both statutes. We have consistently applied that presumption to language in the ADEA that was "derived in haec verba from Title VII."
Our unanimous interpretation of § 703(a)(2) of the Title VII in Griggs is therefore a precedent of compelling importance.
Griggs, which interpreted the identical text at issue here, thus strongly suggests that a disparate-impact theory should be cognizable under the ADEA.…
…It is…in cases involving disparate-impact claims that the RFOA provision plays its principal role by precluding liability if the adverse impact was attributable to a nonage factor that was "reasonable." Rather than support an argument that disparate impact is unavailable under the ADEA, the RFOA provision actually supports the contrary conclusion.…

The text of the statute, as interpreted in Griggs, the RFOA provision, and the EEOC regulations all support petitioners' view. We therefore conclude that it was error for the Court of Appeals to hold that the disparate-impact theory of liability is categorically unavailable under the ADEA….

Turning to the case before us, we initially note that petitioners have done little more than point out that the pay plan at issue is relatively less generous to older workers than to younger workers. They have not identified any specific test, requirement, or practice within the pay plan that has an adverse impact on older workers. As we held in Wards Cove, it is not enough to simply allege that there is a disparate impact on workers, or point to a generalized policy that leads to such an impact. Rather, the employee is "'responsible for isolating and identifying the specific employment practices that are allegedly responsible for any observed statistical disparities.'" 490 U.S., at 656 (emphasis added) (quoting Watson, 487 U.S., at 994). Petitioners have failed to do so. Their failure to identify the specific practice being challenged is the sort of omission that could "result in employers being potentially liable for 'the myriad of innocent causes that may lead to statistical imbalances….'" 490 U.S., at 657. In this case not only did petitioners thus err by failing to identify the relevant practice, but it is also clear from the record that the City's plan was based on reasonable factors other than age….
… In sum, we hold that the City's decision to grant a larger raise to lower echelon employees for the purpose of bringing salaries in line with that of surrounding police forces was a decision based on a "reasonable factor other than age" that responded to the City's legitimate goal of retaining police officers. Cf. MacPherson v. University of Montevallo, 922 F.2d 766, 772 (CA11 1991).…
Accordingly, while we do not agree with the Court of Appeals' holding that the disparate-impact theory of recovery is never available under the ADEA, we affirm its judgment.
It is so ordered.