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> 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
by 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.
- wavefunction 9y agoat the granular level of per paycheck, even
- ericd 9y agoSo they're buying it from ADP?
- falcolas 9y agoOr getting it automatically from the employers in exchange for having access to it for new hires.
- ericd 9y agoI doubt most employers would go for that, but I suppose it's possible. More importantly, though, it'd also be much harder than getting it from a payroll provider.
- gehwartzen 9y agoAccording to wiki they have 225 million employment records and according to The Work Number they are used by 82% of Fortune 500 employers. Then they turn around and sell all that data while telling the participating companies what a wonderful service they are providing them by offloading this task from traditional HR. It's crazy.
- ericd 9y agoOh, wow, that is crazy.
- gehwartzen 9y agoPrepare to be even more shocked. Here is a 'sample' of the EDR report you can request from The Work Number containing all the information that they have on you and may or may not be giving out (or selling to the highest bidder): https://www.theworknumber.com/samples/The-Work-Number-Employment-Data-Report-EFX-WS-0205-11-21-14.pdf https://www.theworknumber.com/samples/The-Work-Number-Employ... As you can see its much more than 'just' your salary. It includes (amongst other things): Union Affiliation; Salary breakdown (Base, OT, Commission, Bonus); Dates of pay increases; Medical Insurance (coverage, Policy #, Provider name, Annual cost); Any Workers Comp claims; Breakdown of your paycheck (401k contribution, taxes payed, garnishments, etc) Just imagine the national outrage if some employer was shown to be directly selling this information to someone about their own employees. Yet a third party is doing just that and many companies are complicit. It is absolutely outrageous! 'hmmm maybe I don't want to hire Joe Shmo, after all he did join a union in the past. He might try to unionize our plant' 'looks like Joe also has some garnishments, doesn't sound like someone we want on our team. Probably has a troubled past.' 'well looks like Joe made 70k last year, but a lot of that was from working OT. I think we can get away with offering him 60k and promising him a lot of OT "opportunities"'
- majormajor 9y agoProving my income (with paystubs or a W2) separately from the credit report the bank ran always gave me the impression that the credit agencies didn't have that info. Nor do I ever recall seeing it in the reports I got from them. Welp.
- rconti 9y agoI've only given fairly vague numbers on these things. Can't say it's hurt my creditworthiness.
- ryanlol 9y agoYou don't need to be honest in your applications, just consistent. The data you enter becomes "the truth" in their system.
- pravda 9y ago>you generally have to give your income. Well, you certainly don't have to give your "real" income. Aspirational income is fine.
- chc 9y agoWouldn't applying for credit based on "aspirational" finances be fraud?
- ada1981 9y agoIt generally asked your household income. This means many 18 year olds can report 6 or even 7 figure household incomes.
- chc 9y agoI wouldn't call that an aspirational income, though — would you? That's just your real household income. It's also not an option for most adults, who are almost all older than 18.
- darklajid 9y agoPutting aside the household income for a moment: "Many" being able to report 6 figure incomes seems quiiiiite a stretch to me, 7 seems insane. Do you have a source for this? Or can you define "many" some more?
- sokoloff 9y agoA million or more 18-20 year olds could no doubt truthfully report 6-figure household income. To me, that's "many". (Slightly over a quarter of households in the US have a household income over $100K as reported on tax returns. Household income for the purposes of credit application can be meaningfully higher than for adjusted gross income tax return concerns.)
- mmcclellan 9y ago
- alexanderstears 9y agoThey do - I'm not sure how they licence it though or what data sources they use but I've seen that their data on high income households is the best in the business and shockingly accurate. However, I can't imagine the compliance nightmare that would exist around a process that lets HR people look up people's equifax information. If they get a full report, it could contain information about disabilities, national origin, ethnicity, religion, and enough information to construct knowledge about sexual orientation. However, all that information is pretty worthless for most decisions. Aside from it being illegal to use that information for hiring decisions (in most situations), the equifax stuff isn't super accurate. I've looked myself up and it gets a lot of information wrong, most other people I know who have looked themselves up in have also found major inaccuracies.
- dsgfhasgjklas 9y ago> However, I can't imagine the compliance nightmare that would exist around a process that lets HR people look up people's equifax information. Employment credit checks are perfectly legal.
- icantdrive55 9y agoNot in CA.
- burger_moon 9y ago"... disabilities, national origin, ethnicity, religion, and enough information to construct knowledge about sexual orientation." Don't employers already get most of that from doing in person interviews? Even through phone screens you can gather most of that information.
- throwanem 9y agoIn the US, those are protected categories about which a prospective employer may not inquire. This point was explicitly called out and repeatedly reiterated in the training I received a few years back about how to participate in an interview from that side of the table. Some of that information can be obvious, as in the case of visible disability and occasionally ethnicity. But it's not permissible to inquire in any case. And speaking from the side of the interviewee, such questions would immediately bring the interview to a not overly friendly close, both because the answers are none of any prospective employer's business, and because no company so insensate to liability concerns is likely destined to end up anywhere I care to go.
- astura 9y agoSo do LexusNexis and probably a handful of other data brokers.
- biafra 9y agoThat is a total nightmare. How are employers allowed to give that kind of information to Equifax? I do not get why Americans allow this.
- astura 9y agoIt's not different than credit card companies giving payment histories to credit bureaus or insurance companies giving claims history to LexusNexis.
- mcv 9y agoShouldn't this be handled by a government agency? It seems awfully risky to have unaccountable companies trade your sensitive information around for profit.
- KekDemaga 9y agoThe government is at least equally incompetent if not more so, at least if a private entity screws up you can sue.
- emodendroket 9y agoThe government is also not operated on a for-profit basis incentivizing doing the bare minimum level of security to shield yourself from liability.
- KekDemaga 9y ago>The government is also not operated on a for-profit basis incentivizing doing the bare minimum level of security to shield yourself from liability. No instead they hire contractors for that purpose.
- emodendroket 9y agoOK, well, while I'm making proposals, let's go ahead and hire people to be employed by the government instead.
- emodendroket 9y agoYeah, at one place I worked they were able to use that to determine whether people were qualified for means-tested aid in seconds. Which obviously made things faster but it gives you pause to know it's so easy to find out.
- dominotw 9y agoWhat about this > We get the market rates through a company called Radford. [1] Is "Radford" still allowed to pull salary data? https://m.signalvnoise.com/how-we-pay-people-at-basecamp-f1d04f4f194b https://m.signalvnoise.com/how-we-pay-people-at-basecamp-f1d...
- kevinmchugh 9y ago37s/basecamp uses Radford for market information - what is the going rate for a person with X responsibilities. This law bans the use of an individual's salary history to make a salary offer to that individual.
- Gargoyle 9y agoIf you gather this information in any way from an applicant, you are opening yourself up to a lawsuit that will cost you many multiples of whatever you were hoping to save. Even if you win, which you won't. Also, "and — if applicants ask — must give them a pay range for the job they are seeking" So start offering what the job is worth.
- chollida1 9y agoare you sure you are replying to the correct comment. Nothing you wrote seems to have anything to do with what I posted:)
- milcron 9y agoGargoyle is responding to "No word on if they are allowed to use Equifax, etc to pull salary data from?"
- jakeogh 9y agoThis is so dumb. Employers can research candidate history without any chance of getting caught, and it's an obvious goal of most ethical (1st amendment respecting) hackers to make sure it stays that way.
- icebraining 9y agoI'm curious, how does the 1st Amendment play into this?
- jakeogh 9y agoAre employers not people?
- icebraining 9y agoMy question was more "how does not being allowed to use Equifax violate the First Amendment".
- dragonwriter 9y ago> 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. Probably not reliably; the numbers are still small and there are way too may potential confounding factors.
- TearsInTheRain 9y ago> The goal is to narrow the gender wage gap. This makes the law seem even more ridiculous to me. Do we really need the government stepping into the hiring process like this and micromanaging? It feels like they treating us like children incapable of tying our own shoes or something
- rconti 9y agoApparently, yes, as this gap has not narrowed. This seems like a very low-impact way to ensure that your past salary history is not used against you. Why should it be? And what is the burden of simply disallowing a line of questioning, with no burdensome reporting or auditing requirements?
- rifung 9y ago> This makes the law seem even more ridiculous to me. Why is it more ridiculous? We already have laws against discrimination based on gender. If the issue isn't being solved, while being hands off, it seems natural to try something different. > It feels like they treating us like children incapable of tying our own shoes or something Well it does seem employers are incapable of eliminating the gender wage gap so perhaps the treatment is appropriate. Not that I blame them.. being unbiased is extremely difficult and requires a conscious effort.
- syshum 9y agoExcept for the fact that male and female pay for the same job, and experience level are statistically the same and there is no actual pay gap. The $0.79 on the $1 shit has been debunked a million times yet is still persists for some reason. The last good study I read showed a gap of something like 5% which was in the statistical margin and was largely accounted for by negotiation tactics. For an anecdote I (a male) earn less than many other men in my same job, and same experience level. Why because I am TERRIBLE at salary negotiation, (or any other price negotiation, i.e I prefer the CarMax pay what the sticker says model to the haggle over every last $1 model) At the same time, I have been involved in the hiring of both male and female employees in the IT world, never once at any time I have ever seen, heard or been a part of discussions where a person would be offered to get a lower salary simply because of their gender. Every hiring process I have ever been involved in the Pay scale is always set long before we even have any applicants. We have a budget, wages for each position are set based on the budget the gender or personal circumstances of the person have no factor in it. We have to find someone that not only fits the job requirements, but also the salary requirements. That can be a challenge, and we have had to pass on candidates simply because we could not meet their salary demands.
- michaelmrose 9y agoCan they simply seek a recommendation from a firm operating in a state or region that DOES allow seeking salary data. If I merely ask how much I ought to offer and provide the applicants data then it would seem no law is breached.
- gyrgtyn 9y agoSame law getting passed all at once in multiple places: makes me wonder if (bigger) companies with access to government figured out some angle on this.
- RealityNow 9y agoCalling this a gender issue is like saying "we're raising the minimum wage to help women". The law benefits male employees just as much as it benefits women. Lawmakers and PR teams just like to spin everything as addressing the gender gap to appeal to society-wide damsel in distress syndrome.
- speedplane 9y agoNot sure about that. It helps anyone who has been systematically discriminated in hiring against over time. When you start a new job, it's not uncommon for your new employer to offer you a salary that's X% higher than your old one, using that as a base. If your old salary was lower due to discrimination, you'd start with a lower base, and would get less in the new job than someone who was not previously discriminated against.
- astura 9y agoNot even outright discrimination. Data shows women tend to do much less negotiation than men. If you didn't negotiate your first salary that can compound for the rest of your career even if you negotiate later salaries.
- RealityNow 9y agoIt helps anybody who's underpaid. One being underpaid doesn't imply or even suggest that one was discriminated against. I was underpaid my first job, and it wasn't due to discrimination. I would imagine that the majority of people who are underpaid are underpaid not due to discrimination, but due to poor negotiating ability, lack of awareness of the market rate, etc. My analogy of "we're raising the minimum wage to help women/<insert minority>" still stands. Also there's evidence to suggest that the gender gap is a myth http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender-pay-gap-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender...
- BearGoesChirp 9y ago>I would imagine that the majority of people who are underpaid are underpaid not due to discrimination, but due to poor negotiating ability, lack of awareness of the market rate, etc. That is due to discrimination. Discriminating against someone who is socially awkward and can't negotiate isn't any different than discriminating against someone for their gender. Both factors are things people can't generally control. One might even go so far as saying it is worse than discriminating based on religion, given the general view of religion being a choice one can actively change. Historically we have been fine with such discrimination, but it wasn't too long ago the true was based on all the forms of discrimination we now view as wrong.
- phantom784 9y agoDoes this law prevent employees from sharing salaries though? I could see companies low-balling when they don't have salary information, but then going up if they find out they're not matching/beating the candidates current salary, which would effectively be the same thing as today.