A bill taken up by a Senate panel on Thursday would empower the federal government to collect the payroll information of private companies and analyze it in an effort to prevent gender-based pay discrimination, which has been illegal since 1963. The law would compel the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to begin mandatory collection of payroll data from private employers, under penalty of law. These data must be broken down by job type, race, and, gender. The government would then analyze the data to determine if companies are violating equal pay laws, which prohibit pay discrimination based on gender. Known...