About agediscriminationcalc.com
agediscriminationcalc.com is a free employment law resource maintained by The Click Lab. Our damages calculator and guides help workers 40 and older understand what the Age Discrimination in Employment Act actually protects, recognize the patterns that suggest age played a role in a termination, demotion, or hiring decision, and get a plain-English starting estimate of potential recovery — before the EEOC filing clock runs out.
What we do
We translate the ADEA’s statutory and case law framework — the but-for causation standard from Gross v. FBL Financial Services, the willfulness doctrine that determines whether back pay gets doubled, and the EEOC charge-filing prerequisite that trips up more claims than the substantive law itself — into calculators and guides a non-lawyer can actually use. Most workers never study employment discrimination law until the moment they need it, and by then the clock is already running. Our goal is to get someone from “I think this was about my age” to a working understanding of what to do next, quickly enough that they still have time to do it.
Who this calculator is for
Most visitors fall into a few groups: workers over 40 who were let go, demoted, or passed over for a promotion or hire and are trying to figure out whether age discrimination law applies to their situation; people who've already sensed something is off — younger replacements, age-related comments, a reduction in force that skewed heavily toward older staff — and want to understand what evidence actually matters; and readers who were just handed a severance agreement and want to understand what they'd be waiving before they sign it. We built the Site around getting each of these readers a useful, honest answer fast, because the ADEA's procedural deadlines don't wait for anyone to finish researching.
How the estimate is built
The full mechanics — how back pay is calculated and reduced for mitigation earnings, when liquidated damages double the award under a willfulness finding, how front pay is estimated for termination and constructive-discharge claims, and what the model deliberately excludes (attorney fees, interest, benefits losses) — are documented in detail on our methodology page. At a high level: the calculator estimates lost wages over the affected period, applies full liquidated damages when the violation looks willful, and adds a front pay component when reinstatement isn’t realistic. The output is a range, because how a jury weighs willfulness and how quickly someone finds comparable work both move the real number substantially.
What we don’t do
We do not provide legal advice, and nothing here creates an attorney-client relationship. Whether a specific employment decision actually violates the ADEA depends on facts a calculator cannot weigh — the evidence of discriminatory intent, how the relevant circuit applies the but-for standard, and the strategic call on how to present a claim to the EEOC and, later, in federal court. We also don’t evaluate individual cases, review severance agreements for validity, or recommend particular attorneys or law firms. If you believe you’ve experienced age discrimination, see our contact page for guidance on finding an employment attorney and on the EEOC deadline that makes delay especially costly here.
Editorial standards
Every guide and reference page is written from primary sources — the ADEA’s statutory text, EEOC guidance, and leading federal case law — and reviewed before publication. We don’t publish thin content: each page is built to answer a specific question a worker facing possible age discrimination would actually ask, with enough substance to be useful while a filing deadline is live. Our full editorial workflow and sourcing policy are on the editorial team page.
How we make money
Display advertising via Google AdSense, plus an optional case-review form on the homepage: if you submit it, your information is shared with attorneys who may compensate The Click Lab Agency LLC for the referral. That’s a disclosed advertising product, separate from our editorial content — no law firm or employment-litigation marketing company pays for placement or a favorable mention anywhere in our guides or calculator. See our privacy policy for details on data handling, including exactly what’s shared if you use the case-review form.
Contact
Questions, corrections, or feedback: see our contact page.