33 ms·
New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary
- ssaxena80 9y agoFinally. I always wondered why wasn't it illegal in the first place.
- bentruyman 9y agoProbably because it's always been legal for you to refuse to give that information.
- duskwuff 9y agoAnd it was equally legal for companies to drop you from consideration for a job if you refused. :/
- alexanderstears 9y agoThat's how price discovery can work in markets. "How much is that tomato?" "$5" "Yikes. Too much for me. Thanks for your time"
- duskwuff 9y agoAnd that's exactly how salary negotiations work now -- the applicant can name an expected salary, and the employer can respond accordingly. The only thing that's changed is that what you've been paid in the past doesn't have to be a part of that discussion.
- woolvalley 9y agoIt's a bit more like: "What did you pay your previous supplier for those tomatoes?" "$4" "I will charge you $3.95 and nothing less."
- bentruyman 9y agoIs this actually happening? After a good interview, qualified employees are being turned away by companies in the later stages of the interview/employment process, simply due to candidates refusing to divulge their current salary? I mean, I'm sure it _has_ happened, not sure if that's a strong argument though.
- ryandrake 9y agoImpossible to know, because employers are not required to share the reason for dropping candidates from consideration. Candidates would need to speculate about the real reason, but I can tell you with pretty high certainty that it has happened to me at least once.
- bentruyman 9y agoI'm sorry if that may have happened to you. In my experience, this has never happened and, if anything, I was given a substantial bump above the number I gave as a current salary. I guess one anecdote vs. another. I dunno, we'll hopefully see whether or not this actually achieves its intended goals or not.
- chollida1 9y ago> The goal is to narrow the gender wage gap. If a woman is paid less than a man doing the same job and a new employer bases her pay on her prior salary, gender discrimination can be perpetuated, the bill’s backers say. Hmm, I'd never thought about that angle,but I guess it makes sense. No word on if they are allowed to use Equifax, etc to pull salary data from? EDIT: looking at the bill it looks like querying Equifax is probably also prohibited > (b) An employer shall not, orally or in writing, personally or through an agent, seek salary history information, including compensation and benefits, about an applicant for employment. As a side note one of the biggest issues macro economists have is that its very hard to prove their theories as you often can't run huge macro economic experiments..... > Delaware, Massachusetts and Oregon have passed similar laws that take effect later this year or next, said attorney Ben Ebbink of Fisher & Phillips in Sacramento. Philadelphia passed one that was supposed to take effect in May but is being challenged in court. New York City and San Francisco have similar ordinances that take effect Oct. 31 and July 1, respectively. With the number of states introducing legislation like this it will be interesting to see if you can tease out any state or city based GDP growth/shrinking based on these laws.
- civilian 9y agoEquifax has salary data? I hadn't heard that. //edit: Well shit, TIL: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/10/equifax-breach-fallout-your-salary-history/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/10/equifax-breach-fallout-y...
- ryguytilidie 9y agoAny time you apply for a credit card or other form of credit, you generally have to give your income.
- gfosco 9y agoIt's much worse than that... The recent "The Work Number" incident showed they shared access to your entire paycheck history, in detail.
- pmoriarty 9y agoThis is a ban on employers -- afaik, recruiters can still ask (and many probably will ask). But, IANAL. (Correction: It looks like recruiters fall under this prohibition too, if they are acting as agents of the employer.) I personally never answer questions about my previous salary or my expected salary. When HR has given me forms to fill out that have questions about either I just leave them blank, and they've never made an issue out of it. Some recruiters tend to be a lot more pushy about it, but I just stick to my guns, and refuse to budge on the issue, telling them that I cosider that information confidential. A couple recruiters have refused to work with me because of this, but most are much more understanding. There's certainly no shortage of recruiters out there, so I really don't feel deprived of many opportunities just because a couple have walked away. I've had one recruiter insist on it because they said they were paid by employers to get that number. They're basically insisting that I participate in a free salary survey for them, for which they'll get paid. Maybe if they shared their cut of what they were getting for that information, I'd consider giving it to them, but otherwise naming a number first will put me in a weaker bargaining position, so I don't. There's a flip side to this, however -- whether to share salary information together with other employees. In the US it's frowned upon, but I hear it's quite common in Europe. I've also heard it argued that employees knowing each other's salaries makes it harder for employees to get taken advantage of by their employers -- which is probably why some employers have tried to forbid their employees from talking about their salaries with other employees, and why I've considered doing so myself, though I haven't yet. It's just such a taboo subject at work. Nobody talks about what they make.
- nicolashahn 9y agoKind of off topic but should one always hide their current salary, even if it's above market rate (given their experience on paper)? It seems as though if an employer were only looking to spend so much on a hire, then if you're already likely above that number, wouldn't it save both you and the employer's time? I can see the obvious downside of sharing a relatively low salary, but it seems like there could be benefit to sharing a high salary (again, relative to your on-paper experience and value).
- 9y ago
- sjeanpierre 9y agodefinitely a step in the right direction, but employees can still get this info from Equifax and other data providers :-(
- Stanleyc23 9y ago"The new bill goes further by prohibiting employers, “orally or in writing, personally or through an agent,” from asking about an applicant’s previous pay." according to the language in the bill, employers don't seem to be allowed to use those types of Equifax products anymore. "However, if the applicant “voluntarily and without prompting” provides this information, the employer may use it “in determining the salary for that applicant.”" ...as long as you don't give it out yourself.
- xenihn 9y agoHow do you prove that employers did or didn't use Equifax or an equivalent service?
- Gargoyle 9y agoYou sue them and use discovery to find out. Any employer in California that does this will get taken to the cleaners. It's possible Equifax would too now, so they probably won't give this information to CA employers.
- vultour 9y agoNot an American, couldn't you just tell them a made up number?
- dangero 9y agoCould be considered fraud. This law removes a lot of concern by providing clarification. Some employers ask for pay stubs, but I agree with you, making up a number should have been OK on the grounds of privacy. Even creating a fake pay stub for this seems reasonably moral if the sole purpose is to set the salary expectation at a new job. Current salary and value aren't necessarily correlated and hires should be judged on their skills and value.
- notfromhere 9y agoNot fraud. Employer's aren't allowed to give it out either. So you really have no incentive not to fib
- dangero 9y agoFraud - wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.
- notfromhere 9y agolying about your salary is not fraud. it has no impact on your performance or ability to do the work. your employer has no right to know your previous salary and your previous salary has no impact on what you're worth at a new position.
- santaclaus 9y agoDon't some of the background check companies actually verify previous salaries?
- dudul 9y agoI've had companies asked for tax documents prior to giving me a formal offer. They didn't specify the purpose ("it's our process") but I suspect that it was to make sure the current salary I claimed was genuine. I told them to f- off.
- randyrand 9y agoWell... there goes your expectation of an increased salary without negotiation. And they did this to improve the gender wage gap? People who don't negotiate will be stuck with their same salary year over year, while those that negotiate will have steadily increasing salaries.
- bdcravens 9y agoI don't see how this is a problem. Those who don't negotiate on a car price probably get a worse than those who do.
- kelnos 9y agoSalary negotiation is a part of life. People need to learn to at least do the minimum amount of negotiation. If you're making $X and a new potential employer offers you $(0.9X), and you just accept it without countering, that's on you. People need to get over the fear that they'll lose their offer if they negotiate. The potential employer has already put in a lot of time (and money) to get to the offer stage; they're not going to rescind the offer just because you ask for more ("That amount isn't going to work for me; I was looking for something more like $(1.1X)"). At worst they'll tell you that they can't go any higher than the original offer, and then the decision is entirely up to you.
- ryandrake 9y agoSalary negotiation is like black magic, and simplistic advice of "oh, just negotiate" reminds me of the "Draw the rest of the fucking owl" meme [1]. Every job offer I've ever gotten has been Accept Or GTFO. Asking for more always results in "That's the offer--take it or leave it!" Whoever you captains of industry are who regularly negotiate your salary, let me subscribe to your newsletter, please! 1: https://imgur.com/RadSf https://imgur.com/RadSf
- kelnos 9y agoThat's somewhat ironic, as the "draw the rest of the fucking owl meme" is one of my employer's values (which I actually agree with, as long as it's not taken to a ridiculous extreme). "Accept or GTFO" is a risk you run when negotiating. But it's better than just saying nothing and accepting whatever low-ball offer they give you first, and it costs you nothing to at least do a bare minimum of negotiating. It really is as simple as saying "I don't think that amount will work for me; I was looking for something more like $X". I mean it: just that sentence alone. Don't demand or be a dick about it, and don't appear meek as if you're asking for a handout, and don't try to justify it with a "I have mouths to feed" or "I'm saving for a house" or whatever. Just state it, and see what happens. That, or something similar, has gotten me a better offer literally every time I've tried it, and I'm honestly probably an average negotiator, at best. It might not get you exactly $X, but that's what a compromise is: meeting somewhere in the middle.
- thrden 9y agoI'd be interested to see if this ends up playing out like ban the box (banning employers from asking about former convictions), where it ends up hurting the applicants the law intends to help. ban the box source: https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/ban-the-box-does-more-harm-than-good/ https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/ban-the-box-does-more-har...
- iandev 9y agoAlthough banning the box unintentionally hurt those that it attempted to help, it may ultimately be the right move if the problem of the resultant discrimination can be tackled also. A one step back, two steps forward situation.
- cyberattacknow 9y agoWhat's stopping you from lying about your past salary anyways.
- otakucode 9y agoI've never once answered such a question and never understood why anyone would. When they ask, you tell them you don't give out that information. I've never even had someone question that or ask twice.
- dclowd9901 9y agoI once had a recruiter (contracted) get angry and berate me when I refused to answer, then finally gave in and gave him my full compensation figure from when I worked at Google. He said I was lying and nobody would hire me at that rate. Needless to say I let him know what I thought of him and ended that contact, letting the HR department at the company for whom he was recruiting know what a jackass he was.
- ryandrake 9y agoI also had a recruiter (in-house, working for the company) become difficult when I refused to provide current salary. She tried several times to suss it out of me and when it didn't work, discontinued the engagement, at which point the interviews stopped. I think I may have dodged a bullet.
- s73ver_ 9y agoUnfortunately not everyone is in the position where they can just say no like that.
- adventurer 9y agoI'm pretty sure companies have ruled me out from even contacting because I left past salary blank. I didn't check their hr boxes and that was likely one.
- whipoodle 9y agoI would be fine with that, personally.
- benji-york 9y ago> The goal is to narrow the gender wage gap. If a woman is paid less than a man doing the same job and a new employer bases her pay on her prior salary, gender discrimination can be perpetuated, the bill’s backers say. Is it also banned for an applicant to inform the employer of their prior salary? If not, it would appear advantageous for non-below-average-salaried employees to being doing so, negating the effects of this intervention.(And for employers to silently discard applicants which do not voluntarily reveal salary history.)
- eridius 9y agoIf only above-average-salaried employees reveal salary, and companies discard applicants that don't voluntarily reveal salary history, then that just means that companies end up paying more because they'll only hire people that got paid more than average in the past. Which is to say, no, I don't think it'll work out that way.
- benji-york 9y agoThat's a good point as far as the employer's behavior goes. It still seems beneficial to the above-average applicant to reveal their salary. I guess that means employers will assume you're below average unless you reveal your salary. That would tend to lump all the below-average people into the same salary class as far as the potential employer is concerned.
- eridius 9y agoIt's still not really in the employee's interest to reveal their above-average salary history until they've gotten a salary range from the employer first. After they get that range, they can choose to reveal their salary history if they think it'll give them leverage in negotiations (e.g. if they want more than the high end of the range), but anyone who's happy with the offer they get won't have a reason to reveal their salary history even if it's above-average.
- sefpfi12 9y agoI don't think this is a right way to go about trying to narrow the gender wage gap. Half of the reason we have one (a wage gap) is because it's taboo in America to reveal how much you get paid with your co-workers. It makes no sense to me why that is the case, all it does it allow the company to screw you over more. The solutions should be to have each company come up with there own publicly available pay scale that says you make this much and every year it will go up by X as you gain experience. AKA how to government does things, I'm not saying it's the best system, but you know if they are a gs13 step 5 they get paid X dollars regardless of anything.
- sharemywin 9y agoThe problem with that is an employer doesn't have any discretion on using pay increases as feedback for performance.
- sefpfi12 9y agoWhile agree that is a problem, I also think that if you gave that power back to the employer you would end up seeing a wage gap form as they give raises people who they like/shoot the shit with/are the same skin color as them/the list goes on.
- rajeshp1986 9y agoIt is a good step towards that. Although top management in companies wants to bridge the gender gap but when it comes to hiring, the HR & recruiters get biased and tend to be biased towards candidates with lower salary expectations. They want to check how much the candidate was getting paid, which gives them more room to bargain with salary expectations. IMHO, the salary of a job should be based on how much the company is willing to pay to get the job done. It should not be dependent on how much the candidate was getting paid by previous company. What if the previous employer was harassing or taking advantage? how does it matter if I was in my previous job working at McDonald's and getting paid peanuts? Selection of a candidate should be purely based on talent, skills & Merit.
- 9y ago
- rpowers 9y agoReally wish this would extend to apartment rent applications. I'm fine with a credit check, but they don't need to know how high they can increase my rent before I'll need to move. edit I am referring to my experience renting apartments from Property Management run communities. (Think Essex or Prometheus) Rent increases every year with them.
- distances 9y agoIsn't the rent usually fixed and known to all renters-to-be? Or did I miss your meaning?
- alphonsegaston 9y agoBelieve the parent is referring to year over year increases, which are quite common in hot markets. A lot of landlords will jack up rents when it comes time to renew your lease, especially if they know there is room to squeeze you.
- rpowers 9y agoAt apartments organized by property management companies, the rent typically goes up every year. By providing your income, you give them a maximum they can easily creep the rent towards.
- MBCook 9y agoThe first contract term is. The implication is by knowing your salary they can do a much better job guessing how high they can raise your rent the next year (or whatever) without you leaving.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kingnothing 9y agoThat's ridiculous. Landlords need to know that you're financially able to cover your rent. Typically, that's a rent of up to 1/3 of your monthly gross. You can generally also show a landlord that you have a significant amount in liquid assets in lieu of providing your salary information.
- leyth 9y agoWhy ask when you can just find out during background check. If anything, they should ban background checks completely.
- sharemywin 9y agosome jobs background checks make sense. do you really want to hire a former bank robber as a teller? or convicted sex criminal as a teacher. Personally, I would want to do a credit check on a CFO or controller because if they can't manage their own finances how can they manage the businesses.
- Spoom 9y agoEmployers generally can't get your salary history during a background check without your approval.
- dragonwriter 9y agoThey are prohibited from seeking the information by any means (including background checks), except information which is legally public, such as when the prospective employee is a previous/current public employee.
- dzhiurgis 9y agoWhy can't you just say "it's under NDA"?
- monocasa 9y agoThere are external services that'll go through documents like rental credit check applications to figure out your salary even if you don't give an answer to the hiring company. This law forbids those services as well.
- ronilan 9y agoNext: Employers should compensate interviewd candidates for their time at a rate equivalent to the position for which they are interviewing.
- jpttsn 9y agoThat’s like a store charging you to try on the clothes you don’t buy. I wouldn’t like that.
- ronilan 9y agoEmployers don't buy employees. That's already the law. So... No. It is toatally not like that and hopefully such a law will help clarify the point to any who miss it. Such a law will also provide balances in an unbalanced power situation and enforce economic efficiencies on an inefficient process. I'm not a lawmaker nor an employer, though, so I'll leave the suggestion for someone else to pick up.
- jpttsn 9y agoEmployers do buy the labor of employees. Think of the employee as the store and the labor as the clothes.
- ronilan 9y agoI've taken economics in university. I understand this line of thinking. It's wrong. (twice, btw, once because the negative externalities of "the interview process" are not negligible, and second because the power dynamics of said process are just wrong)
- jpttsn 9y agoI like my analogy; why not convince me it's wrong? Are there no negative externalities of trying on clothes?
- usaar333 9y ago
- smallnamespace 9y agoThis is not going to be nearly as helpful as people think, as long as it's still legal for employers to verify salary once it's been revealed. People who know or suspect that their salary is above the average applicant's will volunteer it to the prospective employer. Other people will choose not to disclose. We will reach an equilibrium where non-disclosure will be an honest signal of lower current salary. The main difference from the current state is that employers won't know the exactly salary of the lower non-disclosing applicants -- this helps people at the absolutely bottom of the 'non-disclosure' range, but hurts those who are just below the average salary. It should have no strong effect on people with above-average salaries who choose to disclose. Of course, if employers aren't allowed to verify voluntarily disclosed salary, then many people will just lie.
- whipoodle 9y agoOh, I didn’t know they verified it. I’ve never disclosed, but if I was pressed I figured I’d lie because it’s none of their business anyway. I can’t see why your current employer would verify that, though. Plus it’s a dead giveaway that you’re looking to leave... this just seems sort of crazy to me.
- throwaway76543 9y agoThey can't really verify, because many have large non-salary compensation structures, comprising somewhere from 10% to 1000% (or even much more) of their base salary. Repeat after me: "Well, taking into account my current schedule for divestiture and estimated market positions I would need X to match my total compensation package."
- acty1 9y agoExactly. This affirmative action type law will not have the effect they are publically claiming to attempt to achieve. Bring the data. And I will continue to volunteer my salary information at the very first interactions with my prospective target/clients/employers. What a joke. This makes it basically easier to appear bold and "transparent" on my side. Seriously love how these political correct activists keep skewing the playing field to my favor.
- johnthomas00 9y agoEmployers will just ask employees expectations.
- bargl 9y agoI've recently been on both ends of the table here. I don't share my previous salary but I'm always willing to share a pay range. The range being higher than I'd ever expect to get paid. I find this to be important when discussing salary with an employer because it gives me a baseline to continue discussions. If they can't meet my bottom line then I'm not interested. The reason I give a range is because salary is only a SMALL part of your compensation package. If there is a yearly bonus program, great medical, 401k matching, vacation, etc. Each of these things need to be considered when accepting a position. Hence the range. I've also come to expect that I'm going to give a candidate a pay range as well. It is one of the first things I do when trying to on board because if they can't afford to live on the range I'm telling them then I don't want to waste either of our time on discussing a position they can't live on. I'm pretty upfront about this because the worst thing an employee working for me can do is have to start budgeting a lot and be resentful about it. In my mind this law can really hinder that conversation. I like giving a range and asking a candidate if they can deal with that, but it's really nice when a candidate is secure enough to tell me what they are worth up front as well. I would also recommend against giving anyone a fixed value always always give a range.
- Gargoyle 9y ago"I've also come to expect that I'm going to give a candidate a pay range as well." Employers in California are now required to do so upon request, so be prepared.
- jackmodern 9y agothe new law stipulates disclosure of a pay range? that's fantastic! probably only for base though not total comp?
- caoyangs 9y agoHow well has "giving a range" worked for you? I think when you give a range, the employer always tries to pay you the minimum in your range.
- 9y ago
- dudul 9y agoNobody seems to comment about this part of the law : "if applicants ask — must give them a pay range for the job they are seeking" That's pretty interesting. I wonder how companies are gonna try to circumvent this.
- dragonwriter 9y agoBy disclosing really wide ranges (which, IME, companies with internal salary ranges that are not disclosed to employees often have to start with, because they want some controls, but also to give management flexibility in recruiting and retention, so it's not even dishonest.)
- geebee 9y agoI'd prefer to see this go in the other direction and make all salary information public. Right now, employers have far more information than employees, and I don't think this law will do much to change that. To me, it's similar to real estate - imagine if only sellers had access to the database of exactly what every house sold for and when, but buyers had to go with unsubstantiated, scattered rumors. Or vise versa. The side with information would have a monumental advantage. This law won't do much, if anything, to change the basic dynamic. For what it's worth, I work for a public institution and my salary, and the salary of all my coworkers, is public. The sky hasn't fallen. If tech companies balk, one approach would be to say that any company using the H1B or other work visas must make all salary information public as a condition of using the visa. After all, if you're experiencing a desperate shortage of workers, it's reasonable for the public to know what salaries you're paying these desperately needed workers in short supply.
- cracell 9y agoNo thank you. My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make. I also have never told a potential employer my salary. I believe it stopped things from going on to the interview stage but the way they took my refusal made me assume they paid under market rate.
- oh_sigh 9y agoOk, but know that completely rational nations have decided to go with OPs way(like Norway)
- ianai 9y agoAll such information is public there?
- marvin 9y agoWhat you pay in taxes is public (anyone can look it up), and it's normally easy to calculate taxable income from that. (Not always, there could be various events that throws the calculation off). Although in recent years, all lookups are logged and displayed to the other party, which has a chilling effect. I would like the old system back.
- hildaman 9y agoI don't think this will fix anything. Consider the following scenario. Employer to (theoretically) underpaid/under-represented minority: I offer you x. Underpaid minority: accepted. Employer to market-rate perspective employee: I offer you x. market-rate perspective employee: nope. Employer to market-rate perspective employee: how about X+25K? market-rate perspective employee: sounds good. This bill tries to fix a symptom of the problem - but the underlying dynamics causing the pay disparity will remain.
- mamon 9y agoSo, the moral of your story is: minority employees are underpaid because they never say "no" to low salary they are offered? Or maybe you are saying that possessing some basic negotiation skills you don't have makes me evil? I don't follow your logic here.
- whyenot 9y agoAt the same time, salary information for all California state employees, from the governor to university groundskeepers is publicly available online for anyone to use. transparentcalifornia.com
- komali2 9y agoThat site has the most aggressive anti ad-blocker mechanism I have ever seen. I understand why people do this but holy shit that is obnoxious. EDIT: UC Coaches some of the highest paid people in the state... sigh.
- thereare5lights 9y agoI just open up the inspector and delete those nodes that are in the way.
- r00fus 9y agoCollege sports is some of the best way for such institutions to make money. Is it a corruptive influence?
- komali2 9y agoI feel like it's disingenuous to the purpose of a "higher education" institution. Would rather they not need to make the money that way - perhaps it is a corruptive influence in that it changes the "goal" of the institution.
- komali2 9y agoSo how does this work for larger companies with multiple offices? Some cases I'm curious about (and have always been for laws like this): My company's headquarters are registered in Texas, but we have an office in CA that is doing hiring for that office. Same as above, but hiring someone residing in CA to move to Texas. Same as above, but hiring someone residing in CA to remote work (in CA or wherever they please). Then, all three cases, but with a company headquartered Int'l.
- kingnothing 9y agoIf you have a California office, you have to be incorporated in California, which means you're a California employer.
- komali2 9y agoOk cool, that makes sense. In that case, does CA law apply when you do a hire for your Texas office? Being both a Texan and California employer?
- kingnothing 9y agoState laws apply to that state.
- Jach 9y agoI've been curious about some of these things too. My employer is HQ'd in CA, which forbids non-compete clauses in contracts, but I work out of the WA office, where non-compete clauses are ok, and my contract has one. I don't know of any former employees sued so I'm not really concerned about it but I always wonder if it would hold up in court...
- lostmsu 9y agoNow Washington state please.
- Jach 9y agoWe don't even have non-compete protection, good luck...
- jonaphin 9y agoEmployers still get the data via background checks.
- taurath 9y agoI wonder if over time this leads to people making more getting lowballed, and wages actually dropping. The company could say well these people with these qualifications (on paper) took this amount, so you're asking for way over market rate.
- sigzero 9y agoCalifornia...doing it wrong again. You can refuse to give it. You can also get better at negotiating. Dumb law.
- rconti 9y agoBut most people don't. Tell me who this law is HURTING, and why it's a bad idea, rather than just why you think everyone should just act differently.
- gordon_freeman 9y agoJust to be a devil's advocate here : in a hypothetical scenario wouldn't this allow a candidate to give a fake inflated salary of his past job being well aware that it's illegal for recruiter or employer to investigate if this number is true? Edit: I think I misunderstood the new law proposed here. It is not even legal for employer to ask the salary of past job. In that case this situation would not even occur.
- nuclear_eclipse 9y agoIf the prospective employer can't ask, why would you offer a previous salary in the first place, let alone lie about it? Hiring company states their expected salary range, and you either accept it, reject it, or negotiate for your desired salary.
- joneil 9y agoThe candidate wouldn't need to give a fake inflated salary... the company isn't allowed to ask about salary history at all. Even if they weren't, I don't see any real trouble with your scenario (other than that I think establishing a pattern of lying in a relationship so early probably isn't great). But if my last job underpaid me, and now I want to earn market rate... I'd be grateful to not have to answer questions about my previous salary.
- monocasa 9y agoWhy is the candidate even being asked this question in this case? Also, your hypothetical situation is happening already.
- pfedigan 9y agoDoes age have an effect on salary? I'm not getting paid as much as I should be getting paid for my tech profession..
- _raoulcousins 9y agoI've been confused about how this law (and/or similar laws in other states) applies when the applicant is not in the state. I'll be interviewing someone who currently lives in North Carolina, for a job in Washington, another interviewer is in South Carolina, and if hired the employee will report to someone in New York. Looks like none of these states have a law like this, but if any of them did, how does it work?
- make3 9y agoI always lie when they do that anyways. it's confidential information, it's not like they can go and verify with my previous employer. if you do the sketchy thing of asking for unverifiable confidential information just to give yourself a negotiation leg-up, be ready to get lied to.
- usaar333 9y agoI'd love a deeper analysis of how this law will help. Someone's target salary is dependent on their current. Non-savvy negotiators will expose this number.. in which case they aren't going to end up any better. If you are significantly underpaid, the solution today is just to get two offers to ensure your BATNA is based on an alternative offer, not your current situation. I suppose this gives more negotiation leverage to the employee, but I don't see it helping Silicon Valley based devs much. It seems the beneficiaries are mainly lower earnings who lack time/ability to source multiple offers.
- PatientTrades 9y agoThis is a bad law. This will perpetuate the wage gap between men and women employees. These kind of laws will continue the "don't ask, don't tell" aura around salary information. Instead of making this information secret, salary information needs to be pushed more public, so that when someone is paid less for equal work, there is absolutely no doubt about the salary that each employee receives.
- wpietri 9y agoI think it's just the opposite. Allowing employers to ask wage history helps maintain the wage gap. If women are underpaid at their first job, then that will propagate forward to future offers. If they can't ask, then they'll have a harder time knowing whether they can continue to underpay a woman. Having a stated salary range also makes it a little harder for them to play games.
- cisanti 9y agoWhat stops people lying about the wage? I suspect men do it more often and negotiate bigger salaries this way.
- wpietri 9y agoEthics? Morals? Not knowing exactly what sort of lie they can get away with? Years of training and practice in not lying? Fear of getting caught and not getting the job? Fear of getting caught later and losing the job?
- cwyers 9y agoSo they'll buy it off Equifax. Or just get it free from whatever hacker stole it off Equifax and posted it to a Torrent.
- jackfoxy 9y ago> if applicants ask — must give them a pay range for the job they are seeking I find this a much bigger deal. This gives applicants much more leverage and wastes less of their time. No non-competes in California, and now this.
- CodeWriter23 9y agoNot really. Employers can say whatever they want, and here’s how. All applicants apply for Job Description A. If applicant doesn’t ask for pay range, they might be hired into the better paying Job Description B. The man who makes more than every woman for equal work has one additional duty for Job Description Super Omega X. My point is, you can’t legislate morality, and equal work for equal pay is a moral issue. Those without morals will find a way around any barriers imposed by legislation.
- manfredo 9y agoIs it really? Couldn't company's just conceal the real range by giving an immense range (e.g. $20,000 to $300,000)
- yeukhon 9y agoNY has this in effect, but quite a few companies whose headquarters are based in NYC still ask applicants for their prior salary range on their applications. I hope this is just a lag, not ignoring the law deliberately. Also, we should outlaw employers from asking applications their desired salary range; the negotiation should happen after interviews. Employers should either specify a range or give a figure in the job description to save time.
- CodeWriter23 9y agoSo as an employer, I should just waste mine and the applicant’s time and then find out they want more than I can possibly pay them? No thanks.
- s73ver_ 9y agoNo, you should be up front with your salary range.
- yeukhon 9y agoSee what I wrote...? > Also, we should outlaw employers from asking applications their desired salary range; the negotiation should happen after interviews. Employers should either specify a range or give a figure in the job description to save time.
- euphoria83 9y agoThis is a great move! Many a times, a company will set your salary by incrementing your current salary by 10% (say). This is demeaning. The future employer is basically saying that we want you to work for us at as low a wage as we can possibly pay, while not being stupid. Any negotiation comes back to why your existing salary is so low, implying that there must be something wrong with you. The new law forces an open discussion where both sides can decide what they want to pay/earn and start the negotiation from there. The negotiation then follows the track of who has better opportunities. That is a better market dynamic. It will be interesting to see how this plays out when I look for my next job. :)
- notyourwork 9y agoI don't see this is a big deal. You don't have to answer this question, I regularly deflect the question and tell potential employers that I'll be happy to give feedback at the offer point. The question is asked initially before interviews in most cases and therefore I tell them my expectation is to remain competitive based on what I bring to the table. Why is it so hard to be a grown up?
- defen 9y agoPossibly a dumb question, but can any lawyers here speculate as to whether this law will pass constitutional muster? Is this a form of prior restraint that violates the first amendment? Comparing to things like protected categories (age, gender, religion, marital status, etc) my understanding is that it's not illegal for employers to ask these things, but doing so potentially opens them up to discrimination lawsuits if the person is not hired.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jdblair 9y agoFor comparison, in Finland all salaries are made public by the tax authority. Annual salaries are printed in the newspaper annually and traffic ticket fines are proportionate with your income.
- lr 9y agoBefore the tax info was public, they still fined people based on their income; they just expected people to tell the truth. They have even gone back and re-fined rich people who they found to have lied (back before officers could look up the info in real-time).
- kirykl 9y agoI was asked once at an interview for my current salary, since I barely wanted the new job I gave them a number $20k less than true. The recruiter immediately said the job pays $10k less than that.
- trhway 9y agoPrevious title and company will probably become one of the proxy to get a good guesstimate of the candidate's salary. Writing this as the Senior Chief Executive Architect (of that 10 lines bug fix that i just pushed).
- michel-slm 9y agoAlso affecting those arriving on H-1B, I bet. If your previous job is in a non-Western, non-Middle-Eastern country (plus Japan, Singapore etc.) your previous salary is likely much lower.
- WalterBright 9y agoI doubt this will work as intended. Candidates who have been well paid and know it will volunteer this information. Candidates who do not, one could assume, have a lower salary history. Not having salary history increases the risk of a bad hire. Hence, I expect offers in general to be lower under such a law to compensate for the extra risk.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- fictionfuture 9y agoAs a relatively success California (SF) based software entrepreneur, I have to say that new companies would have to be crazy to move to California to start a business. Raise money here, then leave if you know what’s good for you. #protip (These type of policies may be good for employees but are a nightmare for management..)
- conanbatt 9y agoAny economist can weigh in on this? I understand that this would reduce the benefit on the employer on assymetry of information, but wouldn't it be the best to go the exact opposite direction and try to get all salaries to be public?
- oh-kumudo 9y agoIsn't that you need to provide 3 recent paystubs prior to your joining?
- panda530 9y agoMost companies that I've worked at require an employee's signed consent before releasing any sort of salary details. Otherwise the only info provided is hire date, term date and position. I'm a Payroll Administrator in Oregon.
- jayess 9y agoJust another reason for the list I give clients to avoid California when they are considering hiring California residents or having an office in California.
- lr 9y agoThere is a simple solution to the salary problem... Make salaries public. “You can’t make private firms publish salary data,” you may say. True, but local, state, and the federal government can say that any business that does business with them must publish all salaries. The only way to make wages fair is to expose them to the light of day.
- CamelCaseName 9y agoI suspect that any medium-large company would simply spin off a tiny firm that solely works with the government. They could then contract out as much as possible, including some of the development, back to the parent company. The net effect would be that you have a handful of project manager salaries in the public eye at the cost of an additional step in the procurement process.
- lr 9y agoSalaries are public in Finland. Fines are based on your salary, which is how it should be. Making a lot of money affords you many things. Getting out of feeling the pain of wrongdoing should not be one of them. Just one of the many benefits of public salary data.
- jakeogh 9y agoThat's what CA needs... more laws. Lawyers: what are the chances this goes to the Supreme Court? I suspect next to none, since it's just CA, and employers don't care enough about free speech to fight it. Silver lining: Another straw in the pile to split CA.
- dman 9y agoThis seems like a big change. I am always curious about what the current state of the art is for modelling second order effects of such a big change. Would appreciate any insights from people who have an insight into decision making at this level (something that affects millions of people in a real and meaningful way).
- zghst 9y agoYAY!
- hippich 9y agoWhy every small thing has to become a law?... Just say "no, thank you" to question about salary.
- blazespin 9y agoLack of wage growth? Gender disparity?
- d--b 9y agoI've personally always lied about how much I was making... they think of you as an easy employee, and you can get a nice multiplier on your current salary.
- ionised 9y agoGood. The only reason to ask this question is to use it to determine a baseline of how low you can pay the applicant, and unfortunately a lot of young job seekers don't know that it is best to refuse to answer that question.
- lr 9y agoEvery single state employee’s salary in the state of California is public. Look it up yourself: sacbee.com/statepay (warning, horrible search mechanism). The UC system alone has 250,000 people. Student salary data is the only data anonymized. Making salary data public is the only way to go. Anything else is a poor half measure that will probably not solve the problem they are trying to address.
- daveheq 9y agoCan't wait to hear every right-winger I know say how this isn't fair capitalism and not free market, completely ignoring past-wage discrimination and any gender gap... Just like they're instructed to do from Fox News and their opulent pastors.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- thecrazyone 9y agoI think there is systematic bias in such rules because employees outnumber employers and corporations can't vote. For example: 1) In such scenarios, I wonder how is it okay for an applicant to use all tactics they want (note: there is minimal if not no regulation on applicants to a position. Okay, let's make this concrete, this new law bans Cali employers from asking applicants their prior salary. There are more laws which ban or force an employer to do something. BUT an applicant is NOT banned from asking any question. This next sentence I might be going out on a limb here, the applicant is NOT forced to do something either (as opposed to a ban on something). This is systematic bias. 2) It's NOT okay for a corporation to discriminate on race or sex, etc. But it IS OKAY for an applicant to discriminate on race or sex, i.e. if an employer is black, I can choose not to work for him just on that basis, or if it's a woman, I can choose not to work on that basis. You might say the positions of power are asymmetric and in favor of the employer. I'd say you're correct about the former (asymmetricity) but not about the latter. The employer has power by having more money and applicant has power by having more skills. Employers usually respond to such laws as this by coming up with new ways to accomplish what they want, then govt responds with even more regulation. Compliance is a cost which takes away from the pie which any of the stakeholders could've benefited from. A voluntary unregulated hiring market would benefit all parties involved.
- fdr 9y agoGood. There is no principled reason why a job's value depends on previous salary except insomuch as the previous salary was also a market-set price.