Because of the wage disparity between genders, various U.S. communities have passed laws relating to the job interview process. These laws represent a new trend in revealing salary history during job search.
Check out this post. What We Earn by Age, Gender, and Race.
Then take a look at this infographic from the Women’s Bureau, United States Department of Labor. And here’s an link from the U.S. DOL. www.dol.gov/wb/EqualPay. Also, click here to see each state’s laws on pay transparency equal pay.
New Trend in Revealing Salary History
As a result of the pay differences, for some U.S. locales, we are entering a new era with regard to salary information during the job search process.
In particular, one trend involves forbidding employers from asking a candidate’s past salary history.
Now, we look at the rationale for the new laws. And the locales that have already enacted such laws.
Rationale for New Laws
Here are three observations.
Laura Kray, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, praised the new laws as ‘a way to ensure that disadvantages at one point in time don’t have consequences into future jobs’ for women. Since the laws are new, ‘actual evidence of what effect they’re having may be minimal at this point.’ But she predicted they’ll help raise women’s pay relative to similarly qualified men, by pushing employers “to decide what the job is worth and find the right candidate.”
Madison Alder, Bloomberg: “States and cities across the U.S. are banning employers from asking about salary history to foster pay equity among men and women. But it may take time for the bans to be clearly defined. Inquiring about salary expectations may be safer. Ryan S. Kunkel, a lawyer in Oregon, says ‘going forward, though, an interesting case could be made from the employee perspective is that even asking about salary expectations perpetuates implicit bias.'”
Abigail Hess , CNBC: “Amazon, one of the largest employers in the country, will also ban this controversial question. An Amazon spokesperson tells BuzzFeed News, “We think this is the right thing to do for our current and future employees.”
Areas with Salary History Laws
While the list of areas with salary history laws is growing, this September 2017 chart shows the early locales with such laws. Click the image for a larger version. And to see what status the laws mean in each locale.
