From today’s New York Times:
Last December, Yun Yati Naing began searching for the job she would begin after graduating from Baruch College in New York City. It was one month after a law passed by the city went into effect requiring employers with four or more employees to post salary ranges on all new job advertisements.
“All my friends were talking about it,” Ms. Naing said. “It really made a difference going into the work force as a fresh graduate. We had no idea what the wages of these entry-level jobs were.”
Thanks to the new disclosure requirements, Ms. Naing, who was interested in a career in finance, was able to filter out opportunities that paid less than $50,000, the minimum salary she hoped to earn. She tracked job opportunities on an Excel spreadsheet, and, after a flurry of interviews and offers, she accepted a job in financial services that advertised starting pay between $54,000 and $79,000.
Her new employer’s offer came in at $60,000, and she negotiated a modest increase. She graduated in early June and has just started work.
More and more young people like Ms. Naing are entering job searches with a cleareyed view of how much money they can expect to earn, the result of a spate of new laws that require employers to list pay ranges on job advertisements. Salary transparency legislation has been enacted in California, Washington State, Colorado and a handful of cities including New York. Illinois passed a wage transparency law in May.
More than one-fourth of the U.S. labor force is now covered by salary transparency legislation, according to an estimate by the National Women’s Law Center. Norms are shifting nationwide: At Indeed, a job search website, about 45 percent of all advertisements for work in the United States now carry a pay range disclosure, up from less than 20 percent before the pandemic.
Lawmakers often introduce pay transparency laws in an effort to help reduce gender and racial wage gaps. Women working full time in the United States are paid about 84 percent as much as men, according to the Department of Labor, and Black, Hispanic and Native American workers earn 73 to 77 cents for every dollar earned by white workers. Requiring employers to list salary ranges helps demystify a job search.
Read the complete story here.