Sexual harassment in the workplace is a prevalent and serious topic. The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) handles U.S.workplace harassment reports of all kinds, including sexual. Under federal law it is illegal to discriminate against any employee or job applicant based on sex. Harassment is illegal when it is frequent or severe enough that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment, or if it results in adverse action against the employee (retaliation).

The following data was compiled in a workplace sexual harassment study done by the employee rights attorneys at Sessions & Kimball LLP in Orange County.

Which States Report the Most Sexual Harassment?

There are many aspects of sexual harassment data that can be examined – how it happens, why, in what industries, and between whom. But what about where it happens?

Based on EEOC data, the three states with the highest number of sexual harassment reports over the last 25 years are Texas, Florida, and New York, respectively.

As could be expected, states with the most harassment reports are also the states with large populations. In order get a better understanding of which states have a higher rate of sexual harassment reports than others, we need to consider state population and calculate an incidence rate.

Table: Incidence Rates of Sexual Harassment Claims By State

The table below shows the total number of claims over the last 25 years (1997-2021), each state’s population as of 2021, and an incidence rate column. The incidence rate value represents the the number of sexual harassment reports per 100,000 residents of that state. While this is not an exact calculation – the population data is from 2021 as opposed to an average of the last 25 years – it gives us a better idea of sexual harassment prevalence in different states.

Rank State 25 Year Total Population Incidence Rate (per 100k)
1 District Of Columbia 1,601 668,791 239.4
2 New Mexico 4,477 2,116,677 211.5
3 Nevada 5,598 3,146,402 177.9
4 Missouri 10,292 6,169,823 166.8
5 Alabama 7,803 5,049,846 154.52
6 Kansas 4,386 2,937,922 149.3
7 Illinois 17,958 12,686,469 141.55
8 Iowa 4,517 3,197,689 141.26
9 Indiana 9,275 6,813,532 136.13
10 Tennessee 9,048 6,968,351 129.84
11 Delaware 1,271 1,004,807 126.5
12 Mississippi 3,713 2,949,586 125.88
13 Arizona 9,131 7,264,877 125.69
14 Alaska 896 734,182 122.04
15 Arkansas 3,610 3,028,122 119.22
16 Wyoming 688 579,483 118.73
17 Hawaii 1,688 1,447,154 116.64
18 Connecticut 4,210 3,623,355 116.2
19 Oklahoma 4,564 3,991,225 114.35
20 Maine 1,528 1,377,238 110.95
21 Georgia 12,005 10,788,029 111.28
22 Nebraska 2,179 1,963,554 110.97
23 Louisiana 5,033 4,627,098 108.77
24 Florida 23,292 21,828,069 106.7
25 Colorado 6,171 5,811,297 106.2
26 South Carolina 5,502 5,193,266 105.94
27 New York 20,463 19,857,492 103.05
28 Idaho 1,928 1,904,314 101.24
29 Texas 29,282 29,558,864 99.06
30 Pennsylvania 12,601 13,012,059 96.84
31 Oregon 4,114 4,256,301 96.66
32 Utah 3,206 3,339,113 96.01
33 New Hampshire 1,324 1,387,505 95.42
34 Wisconsin 5,608 5,880,101 95.37
35 Maryland 5,529 6,174,610 89.54
36 Rhode Island 945 1,096,985 86.15
37 Montana 885 1,106,227 80
38 North Carolina 8,301 10,565,885 78.56
39 Ohio 8,699 11,764,342 73.94
40 Virginia 6,208 8,657,365 71.71
41 North Dakota 539 777,934 69.29
42 Minnesota 3,725 5,711,471 65.22
43 South Dakota 555 896,164 61.93
44 Michigan 6,165 10,037,504 61.42
45 Kentucky 2,722 4,506,589 60.4
46 Vermont 380 646,972 58.74
47 Washington 4,274 7,740,745 55.21
48 New Jersey 3,577 9,267,961 38.56
49 California 12,613 39,142,991 32.22
50 West Virginia 511 1,785,526 28.62
51 Massachusetts 1,298 6,989,690 18.57

*Charge data is reported per fiscal year.

Next Steps

Looking at the data above, we see that sexual harassment claims are filed in every state – although some more than others. Unfortunately, these EEOC harassment reports do not represent the full extent of sexual harassment in the workplace. Studies have shown that many harassment incidents go unreported, so there is no way of knowing how truly prevalent it is. To understand the full picture, it is important that everyone reports workplace sexual harassment every time. The law is on the side of victim and aims to protect them from workplace harassment.