Four months ago, New York City lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to require many ads for jobs in the nation’s most populous city to include salary ranges, in the name of giving job applicants — particularly women and people of color — a better shot at fair pay.
But on the cusp of implementing the measure, lawmakers voted Thursday to postpone it for five months after employers waved red flags, though businesses didn't get some other changes they wanted.
Over the last four years, at least seven states from California to Connecticut and at least two cities beyond New York — Cincinnati and Toledo, Ohio — started demanding employers disclose salary information to job-seekers in some circumstances. In many cases, that means upon request and/or after an interview, and there are exemptions for small businesses.
Colorado broke new ground with a 2019 law requiring a pay range in all job postings.
New York City’s new law is similar but applies only to employers with four or more workers. That amounts to about 1/3 of employers but roughly 90% of workers in the city, according to state Labor Department statistics.
The law says any job notice — from an online ad to an internal company bulletin board — must give the minimum and maximum pay the employer “in good faith believes” it will pay. There’s no limit on how wide the range can be, nor a prohibition on deviating from it if the “good faith” plan changes.
The laws are propelled by a gradually shrinking but stubborn discrepancy: The median pay for full-time female workers was about 83% what men made in 2021, according to federal data.
Women make less than their male colleagues in nearly all fields, with a few exceptions in areas like social work done in health care settings, federal statistics show.
While small companies and nonprofits worry they'll lose applicants, some big corporations are uneasy about posting New York City salaries for jobs that could be done from lower-cost places. Some also fear a flood of resignations or demands for raises once current employees see what new hires can get.
After Colorado’s law took effect last year, some big companies posted jobs for workers anywhere but Colorado. The state Labor and Employment Department didn’t respond to inquiries about the law's effects.
New York's Democrat-dominated City Council voted Thursday, 43-8, to tweak its legislation to exempt jobs carried out entirely elsewhere and shift the effective date from May 15 to Nov. 1. But lawmakers had rebuffed other changes sought by business interests, such as exempting general “help wanted” signs and businesses with under 15 employees.
Additional reporting by The Associated Press.
