NYC has passed one of the nation’s most far-reaching requirements for employers to tell job-seekers what they can make. Such “pay transparency” laws are championed as giving applicants, particularly women and people of color, a better shot at fair pay.
Pay-transparency requirements are “one of the most powerful tools that we have to change those gaps,” said Beverly Neufeld, the president of PowHer New York, an economic equality advocacy group. Workers get a level playing field, she argues, while businesses increase efficiency by bringing in applicants amenable to the salary on offer.
Johnson argues the solution is fundraising and other work to build up budgets, rather than obscuring salaries. “You have your existing population saying, ‘Well, if this is the range, why do I fall on the lower side or the medium side? ... now I can see, as an employee of X firm, what an employee of Y firm is making,’” notes Ian Carleton Schaefer, a New York employment lawyer who represents sports, entertainment, technology and other companies.