33 ms·

New York City will make it mandatory for companies to post salaries on job ads

mandeepj 5y ago
I hope cities would also make it mandatory for companies to share interview feedback with candidates. They are getting away very easily for far too long. Will opening a petition or a lawsuit, make any difference?
- UnFleshedOne 5y ago
  Expect the most generic "feedback" they can get away with. "I'm sorry, we don't think you are a cultural match for our company".
  - seoaeu 5y ago
    Oh, there’s no way any HR department would approve including the word “culture” in the interview feedback boilerplate! Not as bad as literally referencing a protected class, but still too many ways it could backfire
hardwaresofton 5y ago
I’ve been working on a salary share site for accountants[0] recently and this is great news. More people need salary transparency. I think the site will be obsolete if every state does this though… [0]: https://nomorepizzaparties.com https://nomorepizzaparties.com
cat_plus_plus 5y ago
So forget about paying an old guy more for experience that provides more value than anticipated when job is posted? Also that high school dropout that I will have to train for a year before she is of any use? Hard pass, since I committed to a certain salary I might as well keep looking for my money's worth.
- geofft 5y ago
  You have to post the minimum and maximum salary. They can be different. You also don't have to commit: it just has to be "in good faith." Here's the text of the bill: https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=3713951&GUID=E7B03ABA-8F42-4341-A0D2-50E2F95320CD&Options=&Search= https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=3...
- wnevets 5y ago
  I'm kind of confused by this comment. Why is the highly experienced "old guy" and high school drop out woman (you called them a she) both applying for the exact same position but for different pay? Why isn't the person who requires a year of training applying for a Jr. position and the person with a lot of experience applying for a Sr. position?
  - cat_plus_plus 5y ago
    Because they both want a job quickly and limited choices are available where they live?
    - wnevets 5y ago
      >Because they both want a job quickly and limited choices are available where they live? You described two different positions with two difference experience requirements and two different salaries.
  - erik_seaberg 5y ago
    The problem today is that you have to interview to find out what rate they’ll offer. If you’d have to interview to find out what “level” or “title” they’d offer, and that would determine the rate, nothing has really changed.
    - wnevets 5y ago
      If they're two different positions with two experience requirements and two different salaries, why shouldn't they be advertised as such? Jr cat_plus_plus Technician: Minimum to no experience required. $15 to $20 a hour Sr cat_plus_plus Technician: Atleast 5 years experience required. $40 to $50 a hour
pibechorro 5y ago
Gov overreaching and micro managing gone mad. Welcome to NYC. Cant wait for it to collapse into chaos like it did in the 70s and 80s when it was actually an affordable and cool place to be. Its been a gentrified yuppie suburb for close to a decade now..
JSeymourATL 5y ago
Employers will simply avoid remote hires in NY. It’s happening in Colorado, where there’s a similar law. > https://www.9news.com/article/news/investigations/job-posting-labor-laws/73-7f2ac237-06fe-4353-8318-00a4b52d80bc https://www.9news.com/article/news/investigations/job-postin...
- gruez 5y ago
  but it's still a plus for all the megacorps that have presence in NY, right?
- jahlove 5y ago
  https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/ https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/ Quick, someone buy https://www.newyorkexcluded.com/ https://www.newyorkexcluded.com/
- gigatexal 5y ago
  Companies can’t avoid this if this law existed in all 50 states or if it was federally mandated. We all need to write our reps and get this to happen.
  - gigatexal 5y ago
    Being downvoted for wanting job adverts to have salaries posted? Da fuq?
- vkou 5y ago
  If Colorado passed legislature requiring cars to have better emission requirements, nobody would sell cars in Colorado. If California passed that same legislature, every auto firm would update their cars to meet those emissions standards. Which is exactly what happened. When you're a big enough market, the cost of dropping you isn't worth the benefit of non-compliance. NYC is huge, and has a lot of jobs that people commute in to - which would all be affected by this.
  - skeeter2020 5y ago
    NYC is also a terrible source of remote workers for other jurisdictions: high salaries, taxes and onerous business regulations. Most Canadian companies somehow make out OK excluding all of Quebec (and it's ~22% of the population), so I don't see excluding NYC from your pool of potential remotes being a big deal for all but the most specialized US companies.
literallyaduck 5y ago
Let's take this nation wide. Why was everyone's time and interview hoops for jobs that don't pay competitive rates? Why should loyal employees stick with pay rates that are less than new hires?
- steelstraw 5y ago
  N'ah. Let states test it out first and work out any wrinkles. When/if >50% of them are successfully employing it, then it might make sense to adopt it nationally.
  - citilife 5y ago
    Why even then? Just let the states do state things, having the federal make laws is typically unnecessary. If it benefits business, then companies will do it. If it benefits states, then states will do it. I'm pretty confident posting wages will suppress wages
    - no_wizard 5y ago
      Genuinely curious: Why are you confident it will suppress wages? I think it'll be the opposite. When _everyone_ is posting the wages, it lets companies at the top end use it as a recruiting tool, putting pressure downward to be more competitive on salary, rather than it being a blind negotiation. There will be lots of companies that will have trouble recruiting, because they just aren't wage competitive. This seems logical to me, whats the counter to that?
      - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        >Why are you confident it will suppress wages? The same mechanism you see uncoordinated price fixing, companies set their numbers by copy+pasting from their competitor +/- a little depending on the details. I think noncompetitive companies will be forced to increase wages initially to compete but after that initial spike the numbers will become much more sticky.
rich_sasha 5y ago
Is this bypassable? Bonus, equity, options, salary revisions... It would be great if it's solid.
- sudhirj 5y ago
  It's definitely bypassable, but it sets the floor. Not only do employers have to post hard numbers on ads, it's possible to see what other companies are paying too, so if you manager is trying to short change you during hikes you have a lot of ammo to counter argue. And you could just leave if the grass is actually greener elsewhere.
  - xeromal 5y ago
    If I wanted to be sarcastic, I'd just post every job at minimum wage to 200k.
    - sudhirj 5y ago
      You’d probably still have to justify it somehow, like say there are stock options or bonuses that could reasonably be won.
wayoutthere 5y ago
Employers are just butthurt they might not be able to do geographic arbitrage anymore. This was always coming in a globally connected world, but they’ll fight it kicking and screaming like always.
- CoastalCoder 5y ago
  With remote work, geographic arbitrage can work both ways.
  - ISL 5y ago
    Americans haven't yet begun to understand the full impact there.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      The cognitive dissonance I see on this issue is wild to observe. “Basecamp pays San Francisco salaries no matter where you are; I’m sure that’s what everyone else will decide to do…” I’d bet heavily against that being the point of convergence.
    - dwater 5y ago
      What do you think is different now from how offshoring has been done for the past 20+ years in the tech sector? Or 50+ years in manufacturing? My employer has thousands of engineers in India, and yet they are still hiring as many US based engineers as they can at the moment. Of course some organizations will do more offshoring as remote work becomes more common, but I don't see the shift to remote work resulting in too many organizations suddenly moving all their tech jobs to Vietnam in the next few years.
      - spaetzleesser 5y ago
        Having people in approximately the same time zone and without language or cultural differences makes managing work much easier. Offshoring is very hard and if you are not careful very inefficient.
josephd79 5y ago
They just have to post the minimum and maximum starting salary for the position. I'm having a hard time seeing how this solves anything. Employers can easily get around this by using ad copy saying "Starting salary between $15k and $50k yearly depending on experience blah blah blah.."
- advisedwang 5y ago
  The law has a "good faith" provision. More importantly, perhaps, if you post unrealistically low minimums you won't attract candidates. If you post unrealistically high maximums, your workers will be upset that they are underpaid vs what you say you pay.
  - simplestats 5y ago
    In tech jobs the same job posting could just have a range that goes from basic engineer all the way to the highest possible principal engineer pay, since the posting is for the domain area not the specific level of experience. Govt jobs are often like this too, giving a range of levels and a big range of possible salaries, especially when they include the possible geographic variation in pay. You still wouldn't know whether others with 8 years experience and a MS or whatever, make more or less than you do.
    - Schiendelman 5y ago
      Interestingly, this hasn't happened in places where pay is required! Companies split up their postings by title/level to make sure candidates know their time won't be wasted at their level.
- DharmaPolice 5y ago
  I think I'd still prefer to know what the upper range is. I sometimes get emailed jobs where the upper range is 30% lower than my current salary for the same work with worse conditions (usually longer hours with less holidays). These are a waste of time for everyone involved so when they're coy about it it's doubly irritating.
karaterobot 5y ago
> The bill, which passed with a 41 to seven vote, states that employers who fail to list minimum and maximum salary ranges for New York City-based roles are engaging in discriminatory practices. How is not disclosing a salary range in itself discriminatory? I can see how it could enable discrimination, but cannot connect the dots about how it is, in itself, an act of discrimination.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  It's discrimination because the government says it is discrimination. Changing the definition of words to fit the government's goals is becoming increasingly common (and usually with cheers from the majority of HN posters).
  - hermannj314 5y ago
    Isn't defining words a major goal of legislation? Every code of laws I have read has a glossary with definitions of words written by the legislature to give clarity. How dare the government define what '3rd degree theft' means! My liberty to define that myself has being stolen!
    - mminer237 5y ago
      Well yeah, but definitions should still make sense. They could define murder as including selling plastic straws, but it would still be a fair question to ask how it is.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    as already noted, it doesn't say "discrimination". It says "discriminatory practices". If you wanted to pay people who wear purple scarves less, the first thing you'd need to be able to do is make sure that the purple scarf wearers and non-wearers had no easy way to compare salaries. That's why this is a step against discrimination: it bans a practice that can be used to discriminate (though it may not be used that way).
- samschooler 5y ago
throw8932894 5y ago
So most jobs will now be listed with salary range 10k to 999k/year, depending on performance. Great work!
- the_jeremy 5y ago
  Without reading the actual law, I will say that all Colorado (similar law) postings I've looked at have made an effort to present a realistic salary range (90-120k depending on experience, etc).
- rdudek 5y ago
  Makes it much easier to avoid applying for such idiotic companies that they feel threatened by posting salary info.
- makoz 5y ago
  The article links to another article [0] with the following quote: require that employers disclose a salary range "from the lowest to the highest salary the employer in good faith believes at the time of the posting it would pay for the advertised job, promotion or transfer opportunity" on all job advertisements for positions located in New York City. So it'll be great to see employers offering an SDE salary position from 10k to 999k/year in good faith. [0] https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/new-york-city-employers-will-be-8283408/ https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/new-york-city-employers-wi...
  - geobmx540 5y ago
    If you included worldwide, you could probably get pretty low on the low end (not sure you could get to 10K)
- AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
  Not sure why the downvotes. I used to go through a bunch of H1B paperwork and the salaries listed there were indeed something like $100k-$250k. I'm pretty sure these numbers were correct: a "senior developer" can be anything from someone who just have hatched form juniors and still struggling to find the way around to a guy with a zero bus-factor who holds the skies in the company.
the_jeremy 5y ago
I live in Colorado. The similar Colorado law about posting salaries is probably great for jobs that don't give RSUs, but given how much bonus / RSUs affect tech pay, it doesn't really help SWEs much - they give a salary range of ~$30k and then mention that this position is eligible for bonus and equity/incentive plan without giving any details on amount. For remote jobs that hire in CO, there's also some pay discrimination depending on location (one rate for Boulder, another for Denver, and another for "everywhere else"). Lastly, there's a lot of companies that don't follow it if the job is remote across the US, either because they don't know or because the violation is only a couple grand and relies on people reporting the posting in a way that's verifiable or it still being up when enforcement gets around to looking. I will say that I haven't seen any postings that exclude Colorado, even from companies that originally did (DigitalOcean for one), leading me to believe it was more of a temporary measure to immediately comply than a permanent change.
- jchw 5y ago
  I have a strong distaste for the emphasis on RSUs—I’d be happy having a company pay me more in fiat without the stock even if it’s potentially less overall. I do get that it’s supposed to be incentivizing, but the incentive doesn’t work for me. I just turn it all into cash as soon as possible, and when I leave, I feel no pain whatsoever for money left on the table. Maybe this is not my absolute best choice option, but it doesn’t matter much to me because I’m not trying to maximize my profits.
  - wepple 5y ago
    If you just autosell it, why would you prefer straight salary? Is it concerns over stock fluctuations? I too always sell immediately as I prefer to be diversified (but I also don’t work at an extreme high growth company)
    - beebmam 5y ago
      Vesting is an anti-competitive practice for retaining laborers and we should be shaming all companies that practice it.
SMAAART 5y ago
What prevents employers to game the rules with broad ranges like "30K-300K DOE"?
- brianwawok 5y ago
  The fun part is when you get to the offer stage, and the offer isn't for 300k.. "Hey you said this job paid 300k, what gives?"
- ARandomerDude 5y ago
  Just a couple guesses, could be wrong: 1. If someone has 10 years of experience and gets offered $150K, they know they're at half the earning potential. That's not a good way to come into the job. 2. Employees may monitor the job postings of their own company, then ask for a raise closer to the $300K ceiling, especially if they know they're valuable contributors.
- burnished 5y ago
  Does anything need to? Imagine you are looking at two job postings that are identical except for the salary range. One says 30K-300K DOE and the other says 150K-180K DOE. Are you going to trust the first one? I sure wouldn't. And if you are right and that becomes a problem, well, shit. Back to the drawing board I guess.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    If I wouldn't consider moving for anything less than $250K/yr, I’d consider the first one and not the second one. I'm not sure I'd trust a company who thought that software engineer value creation only varied by a maximum of 20% either. Tight ranges cut against companies differently than broad ranges.
    - burnished 5y ago
      I don't seriously believe that you want to apply for a job, knowing you set the bar at 250K/yr, when the posting set the bar at 30k/yr.
jovial_cavalier 5y ago
I think this will have a negative impact on salary negotiation. "You responded to our listing that said $40k/year, so how much higher do you want to go?"
- Supermancho 5y ago
  In some specific cases it will, but basic game theory shows that the person setting their starting position is more likely to be at a disadvantage in negotiation. Today you can get ranges from 3rd parties (recruiters, former employees, etc)...so it will be the same as today except the starting salary will ALWAYS be a floor from the employer.
strikelaserclaw 5y ago
I don't get why companies play such games when paying someone. I've been interviewing with companies and even after doing well on the on site, they keep trying to skirt the issue of compensation by asking weird questions like "so how do you think you did?" Its like you know that i did well, otherwise you wouldn't even be talking to me, you are just gauging my confidence level so you know how much i'd be willing to bend when it comes to compensation. I wish they just had standard incoming compensation based on titles or something, its exhausting trying to duke it out with HR when all i want is to be paid fairly and write some code. They aren't doing anyone a favor to underpay because when when people find out, and they will find out, their work quality will decline if they feel they are being used and they will most likely not care about ditching the company for better compensation.
- kache_ 5y ago
  As you collect more leverage, you get to straight up ignore them when they exhibit behavior. Until then, punish that behavior by job hopping ever year. If they want to play a game, we can play it too
- SllX 5y ago
  It allows both sides to negotiate. If you can convince them you’re worth a premium, you can command a premium relative to your new coworkers. But if you come across looking like a bargain, employers will gladly pay a bargain to have you. What it boils down to is agency: standardized wages is just another way to fix the price of labor. People that believe they are worth more also believe they should get paid more, and they can use their individual agency to test that theory on an open job market.
  - dmead 5y ago
    It could be agency... but it's just a circus. Do you do the same negotiation for a burger? maybe haggle with wendy's over the number of fries in your order?
    - pacificmint 5y ago
boppo1 5y ago
What is the training for the HR people that decide salaries/comp? I know there's glassdoor & co, but before that, HR people must have used some sort of methodology to figure out what the top & bottom range of a position is, no?
- milkytron 5y ago
  There are organizations that try to collect this data, I know my company currently uses one of them to determine what a competitive wage would be for hiring. I forget what they are called though, and their data does seem to be in favor of paying less (maybe outdated data, maybe trying to side with the employer, who is their customer, that they don't need to increase pay, idk).
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    There are several salary study firms (some old school like Radford, some new like levels) and the answer you can buy from them depends on the question you ask. If you want an answer to “what’s the median base salary for SWEs in the US?”, they can sell you the answer. If you want to know “what’s the P75 SWE salary?” or “what’s the P90 SWE salary?” or “what’s the P75 SWE total comp in the cohort of these 12 top employers of SWEs?” those are all also available, but numerically quite different from each other. You could call any of them a “market reference point” with a straight face.
    - boppo1 5y ago
      How much does that cost?
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        I don’t know how it scales for different size companies, because firms like Radford do some significant inquiry and processing on your data as well (as inputs to the system) and I wasn’t involved in buying that data. Levels has a data feed service they sell that’s an initial dump of N months of history and then a daily dump of additional ones. That was modestly priced (I think that was low 5 figures per year, but in any case it was quite inexpensive relative to running a software operation). As an individual or small employer, I think levels is an amazingly valuable service (for free). When you get larger, buying these products makes more sense. (We’re remote-first and even still spend more on soda and coffee in a year than on salary data; I’m sure the salary data does more to attract, motivate, and retain than the soft drinks do.)
mindvirus 5y ago
This info is already public with things like https://levels.fyi https://levels.fyi and https://h1bdata.info/ https://h1bdata.info/, at least for tech roles. And it seems like it's been fine, not sure what the downsides are. Mechanically, I am curious how this will change even good faith "All Levels" job postings.
- wepple 5y ago
  Levels.FYI is useful, but wildly inaccurate in my experience, especially as you get further up the levels
  - Gh0stRAT 5y ago
    Out of curiosity, would you say the numbers on Levels.fyi are generally too low or too high?
    - wepple 5y ago
      Really hard to generalize. I think people get such varied offers, and depending on what year they’re on & how their vesting schedule works it could be higher or lower. Companies also change vesting schedules and such, and I assume levels.fyi data would get stale too.
  - aynyc 5y ago
    The higher up you go, the less reporting you get, less data is usually incorrect.
tinyhouse 5y ago
This is partially stupid. You're worth how much someone is willing to pay you. What about raises? Do NYC also want to know what raise everyone is getting? I like the minimum requirement but not the maximum one. My guess is that companies will really inflate the maximum number to leave the option open when hiring a super star.
supernova87a 5y ago
Think about what this means in practice -- 2 things will happen. (assuming companies have to honor exactly the salary that is advertised) Companies will: 1) Advertise lower salaries than you're able to otherwise negotiate (if you're a high performer) because they have to advertise this to everyone. People who could've earned more will lose some potential earning due to this measure, or they will not apply to suitable jobs for them that might have paid more on negotiation, and/or 2) Jobs will go unfilled for longer, and people who could've been hired for less will go unemployed or unhired for longer, because companies advertising a job with high salary will have to wait longer until the right person comes along for exactly that salary. On the other hand, I could also see this becoming to the companies' advantage, as now they're able to openly collude and set standard (lower) wages for certain jobs, that no applicant will be able to negotiate above. All to say, this is not the slam-dunk policy that you (or those policymakers) think. Lots of unintended consequences that I don't think that they even know yet. --- And I'm being downvoted for, what, stating reasonable opinions that don't make people feel good?
- option 5y ago
  Lots of remote friendly companies will simply exclude NYC like many exclude Colorado for similar reason now.
  - oblio 5y ago
    New York City: 8,804,190 people, GDP of $884 billion. Colorado: 5,773,714 people, GDP of $318.6 billion. I mean, yeah, sure, they can do that, but it's dumb and their competitors will profit from that.
    - wallawe 5y ago
      I think you're conflating the ability to profit from a region with the ability to hire from a region. You can still get your chunk of that GDP by selling services/goods there even if you don't have employees there.
      - 5y ago
elevatortrim 5y ago
I think what would be more effective is to require companies to publicly post salaries for their existing positions, once every 6 months, like: Support Executive - 30K - 45K Marketing Manager - 50K etc. It would reveal someone's salary if there's only one person working at that title in the entire company but I do not see any disadvantages to that. I think it would enable all employees to negotiate a fair salary, and job seekers to find a fair compensation easier. In terms of range - why could not the law say "max cannot exceed 130% of min"?
- mavelikara 5y ago
  > It would reveal someone's salary if there's only one person working at that title in the entire company but I do not see any disadvantages to that. This is already required for H1-B workers through the prevailing wage determination process.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  There are many jobs where the range of productivity is higher than 30%. Entertainment and athletics are obvious ones, but whether you think programmers of a given title/scope could be 10x different from each other, it seems like most people would agree that there's at least a 1.5x spread. Same would seem to be true in sales, modeling, acting, music, athletics, writing, film-making, and other fields involving significant creativity or where performance varies greatly.
- jedberg 5y ago
  It's funny, because for big companies they kind of do: https://h1bdata.info https://h1bdata.info
- slt2021 5y ago
  you can go to Department of Labor website and get this information (prevailing wage) for each job code and for each ZIP code
dougmwne 5y ago
There also a growing list of states that prohibit asking for salary history. Don’t ever give a salary history if asked. Only share if it is going to help in your negotiation. Advise everyone you know who is job seeking to do the same. This is a very dangerous question to ask because it locks in previous pay discrimination based on protected categories.
- walshemj 5y ago
  And anyone that has an atypical route into that profession. I have also sacked an agency over this and they are on my personal "Call First" list so if I am recommending agencies they wont be getting a call.
- NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
  Indeed - illegal in NY since 2020 under Labor Law Section 194. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LAB/194-A https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LAB/194-A
- ne0flex 5y ago
  >Don't ever give a salary history if asked. Very true. I believe NYC banned companies from asking for salary history a few years back. I was interviewing at a bank in NYC. I attempted to negotiate a salary about $20k - $30k from what I was making at the time, and the response from the interviewer was positive. I was then blindsided by the interviewer (who would've been my boss) after he asked what my current salary is and I let it slip out because I didn't know that it was illegal in NYC at the time to ask salary history. Afterwards, he said "huh, that's a big clip up, I think $X would be a bit more reasonable."
  - aynyc 5y ago
    It's the entire STATE. The interviewer would've been in huge trouble if you report them.
    - ne0flex 5y ago
      I didn't realize it was the entire state that banned the practice. Good to know. I wonder, if a prospective employer were to ask you about salary history, what would be a good way to turn them down? I'm sure there are many employers that aren't aware that this has been outlawed. At the same time, I'm wondering, if you could lie and inflate your salary should you be asked about salary history by a prospective employer, given that they wouldn't be able to legally verify what you told them.
tyronehed 5y ago
Years ago, when I was living on the West Coast and interviewing for a job in NYC, the hiring manager misunderstood me, thinking I was asking for more money, upped their offer by $30k. I did not make the hiring manager aware of the misunderstanding. That sort of lucky accident would likely not occur after this law. But on balance, it's a great idea.
rlewkov 5y ago
Company: You want the salary range ... sure it's $5K to $600K, somewhere in that range, now F off
bberenberg 5y ago
This isn't about helping employees. This is about large orgs avoiding competing with smaller ones. Salary is one of the easy to filter and sort by metrics of a job. If your comp is anything other than base salary (working hours per week, work life balance, equity, non-standard benefits), then your job posting will now be ignored more often. It's hard enough for small companies to get high quality candidates, this will only make it worse.
jrockway 5y ago
I don't really see how this has an effect on anything. Companies will just make up positions depending on the salary ranges they expect. You'll interview for Software Engineer III, but they won't want to pay you that much, so they'll offer you a job for Software Engineer II. I always had the feelings that FAANGs did this. I saw a lot of people come into Google at Staff level because their past job had a similar salary range (but not responsibilities). No proof, of course, but generally they find the level that fits your salary expectations.
MichaelRazum 5y ago
What happens if a company want someone BUT after he is informed about working conditions and the tasks, he wants more than the max sallary. Do they break the law by offering it? Similar could happen if a person got some better offer from an other company and the would like to match it.
mal10c 5y ago
I actually disagree with this on the premise that all aspects of hiring are a two-way street. I've worked at quite a few different companies in different roles, and now I'm in a senior management position. I feel that these types of rules tend to place companies in a negative light - like their primary goal is to focus on company profits and screw over anyone that might be getting in their way. In my experience, this just isn't how it works. When I prepare an offer, I take into consideration a lot of factors that center around how much worth someone brings to the table (expertise, self-learning ability, attitude, flexibility to juggle diverse tasks, etc.). I then work out a range I'm comfortable offering. I then typically offer closer to the lower end of the range because I'm open to a counter offer (so long as it doesn't exceed the max rate I calculated). I then fully expect that person to counter, because I feel that it's on them to do the market research to determine how much they're worth. That's what I've done through my career and I've been happy with the result. I see applying/hiring as a game where the company is trying to find a way to afford as much talent as possible AND ensuring they can continue to pay that rate when times get tough and projects are cancelled/postponed. I also factor in annual bonuses for other employees, R&D budgets, etc. At the same time, applicants should be prepared knowing what they're worth. That takes some research, but it's not overly difficult. As they determine what they're worth, they also gain an understanding of a skillset they can work toward to reach the next rung of the ladder. At the end of the day, I really believe that the only person someone should compete against is himself. If comparing rates is THE issue, then I think the focus is misaligned. If rates are a concern, then start a dialog with your manager. Most managers are willing to go to bat to help out an employee if they really feel they deserve a higher wage. Just be prepared to make your case if you do that, explain WHY you deserve a higher rate - and it should be more than "well so and so is paid more than me." If in the end you're still unhappy with your rate/benefits, then consider a move, but be prepared to grow in your skillset if that's what's needed to reach your financial goals. Handle it professionally and communicate... Those are my thoughts.
- fdgsdfogijq 5y ago
  "senior management position" "really believe that the only person someone should compete against is himself" -> capitalist that wants to underpay people and justifies it through a lengthy verbose convoluted articulation "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -Upton Sinclair
rustoo 5y ago
Out of curiosity: Why do such laws happen at state-level and not at federal level? Most jobseekers would be looking at jobs all over the country, correct?
- walterclifford 5y ago
  > Most jobseekers would be looking at jobs all over the country, correct? Inside the HN tech bubble possibly. But outside of that the overwhelming majority of jobs are not in white-collar/remote-friendly work (and people change jobs far more often than they're willing to relocate so moving to a new state, or even city, for each new non-remote job isn't common either). So no the majority of jobseekers are not looking for work "all over the country" - most are looking for jobs within a reasonable commuting distance of where they live.
- _moof 5y ago
  Probably because the United States Congress is completely off the rails. Or, somewhat more charitably, there's no way in hell any bill that shifts the balance of power away from employers would make it through the Senate.
stephenboyd 5y ago
This is some progress but it's not as much transparency as it sounds. Companies will just list their low-balled official salary ranges for each position. That's just what the employee gets if they don't negotiate. The official salary ranges at my friend's employer are significantly below the local market rate and their base salary is actually significantly higher than the high point of the range for their level. So the situation of naive or disadvantaged employees making less than others will continue uninterrupted, but at least this will help the candidates who are so naive that they would otherwise ask for a salary less than the bottom of their level's range. And that's before even getting to the RSU situation that others are commenting on.
- BadCookie 5y ago
  Won’t strong candidates see the low range and decide to apply elsewhere to places that are honest about offering higher pay? Applications and interviews are exhausting. I’m not going to waste my time applying somewhere hoping that their listed salary range is inaccurate. This seems like a problem that will sort itself out over time. Edited to add: I agree that RSUs (and I will add cost of benefits) are an issue. It would be better if companies were required to list a range for total compensation.
N1H1L 5y ago
I wholeheartedly support this - and if you support free markets you should support it too. Markets are free when information asymmetry is reduced, and currently there exists one. The whole idea of free market of labour is that you will sell your labour to someone whose compensation you think is the best. Having more information obviously will increase your idea of how the market actually is, and allow a more informed decision - a freer market.
lordnacho 5y ago
So if the range is published, can you take someone to court for offering outside the range? What if you ask for the high end and then the firm decides the job is no longer available?
- pandemicsoul 5y ago
  It really just depends on what the final law is. Probably will just be something pretty simple that requires them to publish the salary and then everything else will be worked out in court. In lots of cases like this, there's just no incentive for people to go through a lengthy legal battle to try and sort it out unless it seems like blatant and provable discrimination was at work. But, in my experience in the nonprofit industry in the U.S. where there's been a concerted effort over the last few years to force employers to publish salaries up front (many places where jobs are shared, like email lists, job sites, etc. now require it), there's nothing stopping the employer from offering HIGHER than the range, and why would a job candidate balk at that? Nice surprise! The intention here is to stop employers from forcing people to go through a long hiring process only to end up offering them an absurdly low amount. In a market where employers hold the power and there's always another candidate waiting in line to take a job, this kind of behavior harms job seekers by wasting their time and demoralizing them, which hurts everyone.
  - lordnacho 5y ago
    Yeah. Also by forcing all firms to do it the "we don't want to be disadvantaged" argument for the firms falls away. Could end up being net positive for both sides.
pandemicsoul 5y ago
I love how all the objections to this are freaking out because people won't be able to get job offers above the salary range (which isn't even true anyway), as if the biggest problem facing workers in this country is being offered too much money and this law would stop that.
WalterBright 5y ago
It may not bode as well for workers as the article thinks it does. For example, an employer may find out they're routinely overpaying their workers. An employer may find out, when interviewing a person, that they'll need to pay more than the maximum they were forced to advertise - so they can't pay more.
- smt88 5y ago
  No employer "routinely overpays" for workers without knowing it. It's a strategy, not something you stumble into by accident. > An employer may find out, when interviewing a person, that they'll need to pay more than the maximum they were forced to advertise - so they can't pay more. This makes no sense. The interviewee would simply not apply in the first place.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    > No employer "routinely overpays" for workers without knowing it. There is no secret database of what is being paid. They don't know any more than the employee does, or can find out with google. > The interviewee would simply not apply in the first place. Both the employer and interviewee find out things in the process. The employer may want to ensure the interviewee doesn't take one of the other jobs he's looking into.
    - smt88 5y ago
      > There is no secret database of what is being paid. There are public and private databases of this info. Glassdoor is public, but you can also buy salary data from the credit bureaus. Every large company can easily find out what a single applicant has made in the past and/or get aggregated data regarding a particular title.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        You don't need to know what individuals make. You need to know in general what people in your skill level make, and that is easily googled.
WalterBright 5y ago
"An applicant would be forced to interview with more than three to six people for up to six months." Forced? Don't be absurd. "After the culmination of an arduous, emotionally draining interview process, an offer could be made that is far below the expectations of the eager candidate." There's nothing whatsoever preventing the candidate from, at the beginning, saying: "hey, before we spend a lot of time on this, what kind of salaries are we talking?" And at the end, if the candidate gets a lowball offer, there's nothing whatsoever preventing him making a counteroffer.
- lsiebert 5y ago
  Those of us who work in tech operate with a lot of privileges compared to many many other workers. All of these options technically exist, but make a lot of assumptions that aren't true for my non techie friends who are looking for work. It's not unusual in a lot of industries for companies to not continue to interview someone who doesn't let them decide everything about the process.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    If more people simply said "no", that wouldn't work for companies. Even so, I doubt that employers can afford to be that picky. If they could, everyone would be getting minimum wage. Everyone getting above minimum wage obviously has leverage.
    - diob 5y ago
      Just say "no"? And do what? Lot's of folks are supporting others, or need to support themselves. "Sorry my sweet daughter, no cancer treatment this week, I said no to that job." I have 0 clue why you think picky === minimum wage. It just means suppressed wages, which is highly documented. Even the big tech companies had agreements not to "poach".
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        I've encountered companies with such agreements. They still do it, they just don't make it obvious. Cartels like that are unstable, because each party has a massive incentive to cheat on it, and the advantage accrues to you.
Hnrobert42 5y ago
I’m pretty liberal. I support unions. I generally distrust corporations. At the same time, if this passes, my company will just stop hiring in New York. It’s not worth the risk of getting sued by every person who gets an offer lower than the maximum.
- bradleyjg 5y ago
  Colorado has already passed this. There’s been some fallout, people have reported job postings that say “remote anywhere except Colorado” but it’s hardly been catastrophic for their job market. NYC is an even bigger draw than Denver.
  - Hnrobert42 5y ago
    Yeah. That’s likely what we will do.
- notreallyserio 5y ago
  How likely do you think that is? Have you been sued when an employee finds out a coworker with the same title earns more than them?
  - Hnrobert42 5y ago
    It doesn’t matter. It’s not worth the risk and hassle.
- ryan_lane 5y ago
  This has been a law in California for years. Do you not hire there? This law is very similar. You're required to post ranges. They can be relatively wide. No one is suing for not getting the maximum, because this law doesn't make that a requirement.
  - Hnrobert42 5y ago
    Interesting. i will have to check. We have CA employees, but I don’t k ow if we post jobs there. If we do, we’ll likely stop.
vmception 5y ago
> The laws were drafted, in large part, to help close the gender pay gap. HIRED’s annual recruiting reports found that a significant driver of this were candidates asking for far lower than other peers. Many times, companies would then offer that candidate a greater salary, which was still below the bolder or more comfortable peer. The candidate feels like their company is doing them a favor. So, this aspect should illuminate that many people are not aware that their own company is contributing to pay gaps. Any individual may in fact think the opposite, that it must be some other company with the proverbial bigoted shadow men in a board room disenfranchising everyone that doesn't look like them. When that picture isn't whats happening or isn't necessary, when candidates exacerbate this on their own. Could it be that the candidate has experience being turned down when asking higher rates? Perhaps. Could it be that the company doesnt even realize that they arent getting a deal with the candidate, but really just exacerbating pay gaps? That the candidates asking lower may be disproportionately certain genders and ethnicities? New York City is reducing this to anti-discrimination, making the penalties inherit discrimination frameworks without regard to the circumstances leading up to it. I think thats a great remedy, given how opaque and nuanced the reality really has been. We don't need to tweak candidate behavior or gradually retrain companies to notice gender and race to conditionally adjust, instead just make the salaries apparent for all.
TedShiller 5y ago
It requires publishing the minimum and maximum range. So they can always say [minimum wage, $1,000,000]

I hope cities would also make it mandatory for companies to share interview feedback with candidates. They are getting away very easily for far too long. Will opening a petition or a lawsuit, make any difference?

UnFleshedOne 5y ago
Expect the most generic "feedback" they can get away with. "I'm sorry, we don't think you are a cultural match for our company".
- seoaeu 5y ago
  Oh, there’s no way any HR department would approve including the word “culture” in the interview feedback boilerplate! Not as bad as literally referencing a protected class, but still too many ways it could backfire

hardwaresofton 5y ago

I’ve been working on a salary share site for accountants[0] recently and this is great news. More people need salary transparency. I think the site will be obsolete if every state does this though… [0]: https://nomorepizzaparties.com https://nomorepizzaparties.com

cat_plus_plus 5y ago

So forget about paying an old guy more for experience that provides more value than anticipated when job is posted? Also that high school dropout that I will have to train for a year before she is of any use? Hard pass, since I committed to a certain salary I might as well keep looking for my money's worth.

geofft 5y ago
You have to post the minimum and maximum salary. They can be different. You also don't have to commit: it just has to be "in good faith." Here's the text of the bill: https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=3713951&GUID=E7B03ABA-8F42-4341-A0D2-50E2F95320CD&Options=&Search= https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=3...
wnevets 5y ago
I'm kind of confused by this comment. Why is the highly experienced "old guy" and high school drop out woman (you called them a she) both applying for the exact same position but for different pay? Why isn't the person who requires a year of training applying for a Jr. position and the person with a lot of experience applying for a Sr. position?
- cat_plus_plus 5y ago
  Because they both want a job quickly and limited choices are available where they live?
  - wnevets 5y ago
    >Because they both want a job quickly and limited choices are available where they live? You described two different positions with two difference experience requirements and two different salaries.
- erik_seaberg 5y ago
  The problem today is that you have to interview to find out what rate they’ll offer. If you’d have to interview to find out what “level” or “title” they’d offer, and that would determine the rate, nothing has really changed.
  - wnevets 5y ago
    If they're two different positions with two experience requirements and two different salaries, why shouldn't they be advertised as such? Jr cat_plus_plus Technician: Minimum to no experience required. $15 to $20 a hour Sr cat_plus_plus Technician: Atleast 5 years experience required. $40 to $50 a hour

pibechorro 5y ago

Gov overreaching and micro managing gone mad. Welcome to NYC. Cant wait for it to collapse into chaos like it did in the 70s and 80s when it was actually an affordable and cool place to be. Its been a gentrified yuppie suburb for close to a decade now..

JSeymourATL 5y ago

Employers will simply avoid remote hires in NY. It’s happening in Colorado, where there’s a similar law. > https://www.9news.com/article/news/investigations/job-posting-labor-laws/73-7f2ac237-06fe-4353-8318-00a4b52d80bc https://www.9news.com/article/news/investigations/job-postin...

gruez 5y ago
but it's still a plus for all the megacorps that have presence in NY, right?
jahlove 5y ago
https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/ https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/ Quick, someone buy https://www.newyorkexcluded.com/ https://www.newyorkexcluded.com/
gigatexal 5y ago
Companies can’t avoid this if this law existed in all 50 states or if it was federally mandated. We all need to write our reps and get this to happen.
- gigatexal 5y ago
  Being downvoted for wanting job adverts to have salaries posted? Da fuq?
vkou 5y ago
If Colorado passed legislature requiring cars to have better emission requirements, nobody would sell cars in Colorado. If California passed that same legislature, every auto firm would update their cars to meet those emissions standards. Which is exactly what happened. When you're a big enough market, the cost of dropping you isn't worth the benefit of non-compliance. NYC is huge, and has a lot of jobs that people commute in to - which would all be affected by this.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  NYC is also a terrible source of remote workers for other jurisdictions: high salaries, taxes and onerous business regulations. Most Canadian companies somehow make out OK excluding all of Quebec (and it's ~22% of the population), so I don't see excluding NYC from your pool of potential remotes being a big deal for all but the most specialized US companies.

literallyaduck 5y ago

Let's take this nation wide. Why was everyone's time and interview hoops for jobs that don't pay competitive rates? Why should loyal employees stick with pay rates that are less than new hires?

steelstraw 5y ago
N'ah. Let states test it out first and work out any wrinkles. When/if >50% of them are successfully employing it, then it might make sense to adopt it nationally.
- citilife 5y ago
  Why even then? Just let the states do state things, having the federal make laws is typically unnecessary. If it benefits business, then companies will do it. If it benefits states, then states will do it. I'm pretty confident posting wages will suppress wages
  - no_wizard 5y ago
    Genuinely curious: Why are you confident it will suppress wages? I think it'll be the opposite. When _everyone_ is posting the wages, it lets companies at the top end use it as a recruiting tool, putting pressure downward to be more competitive on salary, rather than it being a blind negotiation. There will be lots of companies that will have trouble recruiting, because they just aren't wage competitive. This seems logical to me, whats the counter to that?
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      >Why are you confident it will suppress wages? The same mechanism you see uncoordinated price fixing, companies set their numbers by copy+pasting from their competitor +/- a little depending on the details. I think noncompetitive companies will be forced to increase wages initially to compete but after that initial spike the numbers will become much more sticky.

rich_sasha 5y ago

Is this bypassable? Bonus, equity, options, salary revisions... It would be great if it's solid.

sudhirj 5y ago
It's definitely bypassable, but it sets the floor. Not only do employers have to post hard numbers on ads, it's possible to see what other companies are paying too, so if you manager is trying to short change you during hikes you have a lot of ammo to counter argue. And you could just leave if the grass is actually greener elsewhere.
- xeromal 5y ago
  If I wanted to be sarcastic, I'd just post every job at minimum wage to 200k.
  - sudhirj 5y ago
    You’d probably still have to justify it somehow, like say there are stock options or bonuses that could reasonably be won.

wayoutthere 5y ago

Employers are just butthurt they might not be able to do geographic arbitrage anymore. This was always coming in a globally connected world, but they’ll fight it kicking and screaming like always.

CoastalCoder 5y ago
With remote work, geographic arbitrage can work both ways.
- ISL 5y ago
  Americans haven't yet begun to understand the full impact there.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    The cognitive dissonance I see on this issue is wild to observe. “Basecamp pays San Francisco salaries no matter where you are; I’m sure that’s what everyone else will decide to do…” I’d bet heavily against that being the point of convergence.
  - dwater 5y ago
    What do you think is different now from how offshoring has been done for the past 20+ years in the tech sector? Or 50+ years in manufacturing? My employer has thousands of engineers in India, and yet they are still hiring as many US based engineers as they can at the moment. Of course some organizations will do more offshoring as remote work becomes more common, but I don't see the shift to remote work resulting in too many organizations suddenly moving all their tech jobs to Vietnam in the next few years.
    - spaetzleesser 5y ago
      Having people in approximately the same time zone and without language or cultural differences makes managing work much easier. Offshoring is very hard and if you are not careful very inefficient.

josephd79 5y ago

They just have to post the minimum and maximum starting salary for the position. I'm having a hard time seeing how this solves anything. Employers can easily get around this by using ad copy saying "Starting salary between $15k and $50k yearly depending on experience blah blah blah.."

advisedwang 5y ago
The law has a "good faith" provision. More importantly, perhaps, if you post unrealistically low minimums you won't attract candidates. If you post unrealistically high maximums, your workers will be upset that they are underpaid vs what you say you pay.
- simplestats 5y ago
  In tech jobs the same job posting could just have a range that goes from basic engineer all the way to the highest possible principal engineer pay, since the posting is for the domain area not the specific level of experience. Govt jobs are often like this too, giving a range of levels and a big range of possible salaries, especially when they include the possible geographic variation in pay. You still wouldn't know whether others with 8 years experience and a MS or whatever, make more or less than you do.
  - Schiendelman 5y ago
    Interestingly, this hasn't happened in places where pay is required! Companies split up their postings by title/level to make sure candidates know their time won't be wasted at their level.
DharmaPolice 5y ago
I think I'd still prefer to know what the upper range is. I sometimes get emailed jobs where the upper range is 30% lower than my current salary for the same work with worse conditions (usually longer hours with less holidays). These are a waste of time for everyone involved so when they're coy about it it's doubly irritating.

karaterobot 5y ago

> The bill, which passed with a 41 to seven vote, states that employers who fail to list minimum and maximum salary ranges for New York City-based roles are engaging in discriminatory practices. How is not disclosing a salary range in itself discriminatory? I can see how it could enable discrimination, but cannot connect the dots about how it is, in itself, an act of discrimination.

Mountain_Skies 5y ago
It's discrimination because the government says it is discrimination. Changing the definition of words to fit the government's goals is becoming increasingly common (and usually with cheers from the majority of HN posters).
- hermannj314 5y ago
  Isn't defining words a major goal of legislation? Every code of laws I have read has a glossary with definitions of words written by the legislature to give clarity. How dare the government define what '3rd degree theft' means! My liberty to define that myself has being stolen!
  - mminer237 5y ago
    Well yeah, but definitions should still make sense. They could define murder as including selling plastic straws, but it would still be a fair question to ask how it is.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  as already noted, it doesn't say "discrimination". It says "discriminatory practices". If you wanted to pay people who wear purple scarves less, the first thing you'd need to be able to do is make sure that the purple scarf wearers and non-wearers had no easy way to compare salaries. That's why this is a step against discrimination: it bans a practice that can be used to discriminate (though it may not be used that way).
samschooler 5y ago

throw8932894 5y ago

So most jobs will now be listed with salary range 10k to 999k/year, depending on performance. Great work!

the_jeremy 5y ago
Without reading the actual law, I will say that all Colorado (similar law) postings I've looked at have made an effort to present a realistic salary range (90-120k depending on experience, etc).
rdudek 5y ago
Makes it much easier to avoid applying for such idiotic companies that they feel threatened by posting salary info.
makoz 5y ago
The article links to another article [0] with the following quote: require that employers disclose a salary range "from the lowest to the highest salary the employer in good faith believes at the time of the posting it would pay for the advertised job, promotion or transfer opportunity" on all job advertisements for positions located in New York City. So it'll be great to see employers offering an SDE salary position from 10k to 999k/year in good faith. [0] https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/new-york-city-employers-will-be-8283408/ https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/new-york-city-employers-wi...
- geobmx540 5y ago
  If you included worldwide, you could probably get pretty low on the low end (not sure you could get to 10K)
AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
Not sure why the downvotes. I used to go through a bunch of H1B paperwork and the salaries listed there were indeed something like $100k-$250k. I'm pretty sure these numbers were correct: a "senior developer" can be anything from someone who just have hatched form juniors and still struggling to find the way around to a guy with a zero bus-factor who holds the skies in the company.

the_jeremy 5y ago

I live in Colorado. The similar Colorado law about posting salaries is probably great for jobs that don't give RSUs, but given how much bonus / RSUs affect tech pay, it doesn't really help SWEs much - they give a salary range of ~$30k and then mention that this position is eligible for bonus and equity/incentive plan without giving any details on amount. For remote jobs that hire in CO, there's also some pay discrimination depending on location (one rate for Boulder, another for Denver, and another for "everywhere else"). Lastly, there's a lot of companies that don't follow it if the job is remote across the US, either because they don't know or because the violation is only a couple grand and relies on people reporting the posting in a way that's verifiable or it still being up when enforcement gets around to looking. I will say that I haven't seen any postings that exclude Colorado, even from companies that originally did (DigitalOcean for one), leading me to believe it was more of a temporary measure to immediately comply than a permanent change.

jchw 5y ago
I have a strong distaste for the emphasis on RSUs—I’d be happy having a company pay me more in fiat without the stock even if it’s potentially less overall. I do get that it’s supposed to be incentivizing, but the incentive doesn’t work for me. I just turn it all into cash as soon as possible, and when I leave, I feel no pain whatsoever for money left on the table. Maybe this is not my absolute best choice option, but it doesn’t matter much to me because I’m not trying to maximize my profits.
- wepple 5y ago
  If you just autosell it, why would you prefer straight salary? Is it concerns over stock fluctuations? I too always sell immediately as I prefer to be diversified (but I also don’t work at an extreme high growth company)
  - beebmam 5y ago
    Vesting is an anti-competitive practice for retaining laborers and we should be shaming all companies that practice it.

SMAAART 5y ago

What prevents employers to game the rules with broad ranges like "30K-300K DOE"?

brianwawok 5y ago
The fun part is when you get to the offer stage, and the offer isn't for 300k.. "Hey you said this job paid 300k, what gives?"
ARandomerDude 5y ago
Just a couple guesses, could be wrong: 1. If someone has 10 years of experience and gets offered $150K, they know they're at half the earning potential. That's not a good way to come into the job. 2. Employees may monitor the job postings of their own company, then ask for a raise closer to the $300K ceiling, especially if they know they're valuable contributors.
burnished 5y ago
Does anything need to? Imagine you are looking at two job postings that are identical except for the salary range. One says 30K-300K DOE and the other says 150K-180K DOE. Are you going to trust the first one? I sure wouldn't. And if you are right and that becomes a problem, well, shit. Back to the drawing board I guess.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  If I wouldn't consider moving for anything less than $250K/yr, I’d consider the first one and not the second one. I'm not sure I'd trust a company who thought that software engineer value creation only varied by a maximum of 20% either. Tight ranges cut against companies differently than broad ranges.
  - burnished 5y ago
    I don't seriously believe that you want to apply for a job, knowing you set the bar at 250K/yr, when the posting set the bar at 30k/yr.

jovial_cavalier 5y ago

I think this will have a negative impact on salary negotiation. "You responded to our listing that said $40k/year, so how much higher do you want to go?"

Supermancho 5y ago
In some specific cases it will, but basic game theory shows that the person setting their starting position is more likely to be at a disadvantage in negotiation. Today you can get ranges from 3rd parties (recruiters, former employees, etc)...so it will be the same as today except the starting salary will ALWAYS be a floor from the employer.

strikelaserclaw 5y ago

I don't get why companies play such games when paying someone. I've been interviewing with companies and even after doing well on the on site, they keep trying to skirt the issue of compensation by asking weird questions like "so how do you think you did?" Its like you know that i did well, otherwise you wouldn't even be talking to me, you are just gauging my confidence level so you know how much i'd be willing to bend when it comes to compensation. I wish they just had standard incoming compensation based on titles or something, its exhausting trying to duke it out with HR when all i want is to be paid fairly and write some code. They aren't doing anyone a favor to underpay because when when people find out, and they will find out, their work quality will decline if they feel they are being used and they will most likely not care about ditching the company for better compensation.

kache_ 5y ago
As you collect more leverage, you get to straight up ignore them when they exhibit behavior. Until then, punish that behavior by job hopping ever year. If they want to play a game, we can play it too
SllX 5y ago
It allows both sides to negotiate. If you can convince them you’re worth a premium, you can command a premium relative to your new coworkers. But if you come across looking like a bargain, employers will gladly pay a bargain to have you. What it boils down to is agency: standardized wages is just another way to fix the price of labor. People that believe they are worth more also believe they should get paid more, and they can use their individual agency to test that theory on an open job market.
- dmead 5y ago
  It could be agency... but it's just a circus. Do you do the same negotiation for a burger? maybe haggle with wendy's over the number of fries in your order?
  - pacificmint 5y ago

boppo1 5y ago

What is the training for the HR people that decide salaries/comp? I know there's glassdoor & co, but before that, HR people must have used some sort of methodology to figure out what the top & bottom range of a position is, no?

milkytron 5y ago
There are organizations that try to collect this data, I know my company currently uses one of them to determine what a competitive wage would be for hiring. I forget what they are called though, and their data does seem to be in favor of paying less (maybe outdated data, maybe trying to side with the employer, who is their customer, that they don't need to increase pay, idk).
- sokoloff 5y ago
  There are several salary study firms (some old school like Radford, some new like levels) and the answer you can buy from them depends on the question you ask. If you want an answer to “what’s the median base salary for SWEs in the US?”, they can sell you the answer. If you want to know “what’s the P75 SWE salary?” or “what’s the P90 SWE salary?” or “what’s the P75 SWE total comp in the cohort of these 12 top employers of SWEs?” those are all also available, but numerically quite different from each other. You could call any of them a “market reference point” with a straight face.
  - boppo1 5y ago
    How much does that cost?
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      I don’t know how it scales for different size companies, because firms like Radford do some significant inquiry and processing on your data as well (as inputs to the system) and I wasn’t involved in buying that data. Levels has a data feed service they sell that’s an initial dump of N months of history and then a daily dump of additional ones. That was modestly priced (I think that was low 5 figures per year, but in any case it was quite inexpensive relative to running a software operation). As an individual or small employer, I think levels is an amazingly valuable service (for free). When you get larger, buying these products makes more sense. (We’re remote-first and even still spend more on soda and coffee in a year than on salary data; I’m sure the salary data does more to attract, motivate, and retain than the soft drinks do.)

mindvirus 5y ago

This info is already public with things like https://levels.fyi https://levels.fyi and https://h1bdata.info/ https://h1bdata.info/, at least for tech roles. And it seems like it's been fine, not sure what the downsides are. Mechanically, I am curious how this will change even good faith "All Levels" job postings.

wepple 5y ago
Levels.FYI is useful, but wildly inaccurate in my experience, especially as you get further up the levels
- Gh0stRAT 5y ago
  Out of curiosity, would you say the numbers on Levels.fyi are generally too low or too high?
  - wepple 5y ago
    Really hard to generalize. I think people get such varied offers, and depending on what year they’re on & how their vesting schedule works it could be higher or lower. Companies also change vesting schedules and such, and I assume levels.fyi data would get stale too.
- aynyc 5y ago
  The higher up you go, the less reporting you get, less data is usually incorrect.

tinyhouse 5y ago

This is partially stupid. You're worth how much someone is willing to pay you. What about raises? Do NYC also want to know what raise everyone is getting? I like the minimum requirement but not the maximum one. My guess is that companies will really inflate the maximum number to leave the option open when hiring a super star.

supernova87a 5y ago

Think about what this means in practice -- 2 things will happen. (assuming companies have to honor exactly the salary that is advertised) Companies will: 1) Advertise lower salaries than you're able to otherwise negotiate (if you're a high performer) because they have to advertise this to everyone. People who could've earned more will lose some potential earning due to this measure, or they will not apply to suitable jobs for them that might have paid more on negotiation, and/or 2) Jobs will go unfilled for longer, and people who could've been hired for less will go unemployed or unhired for longer, because companies advertising a job with high salary will have to wait longer until the right person comes along for exactly that salary. On the other hand, I could also see this becoming to the companies' advantage, as now they're able to openly collude and set standard (lower) wages for certain jobs, that no applicant will be able to negotiate above. All to say, this is not the slam-dunk policy that you (or those policymakers) think. Lots of unintended consequences that I don't think that they even know yet. --- And I'm being downvoted for, what, stating reasonable opinions that don't make people feel good?

option 5y ago
Lots of remote friendly companies will simply exclude NYC like many exclude Colorado for similar reason now.
- oblio 5y ago
  New York City: 8,804,190 people, GDP of $884 billion. Colorado: 5,773,714 people, GDP of $318.6 billion. I mean, yeah, sure, they can do that, but it's dumb and their competitors will profit from that.
  - wallawe 5y ago
    I think you're conflating the ability to profit from a region with the ability to hire from a region. You can still get your chunk of that GDP by selling services/goods there even if you don't have employees there.
    - 5y ago

elevatortrim 5y ago

I think what would be more effective is to require companies to publicly post salaries for their existing positions, once every 6 months, like: Support Executive - 30K - 45K Marketing Manager - 50K etc. It would reveal someone's salary if there's only one person working at that title in the entire company but I do not see any disadvantages to that. I think it would enable all employees to negotiate a fair salary, and job seekers to find a fair compensation easier. In terms of range - why could not the law say "max cannot exceed 130% of min"?

mavelikara 5y ago
> It would reveal someone's salary if there's only one person working at that title in the entire company but I do not see any disadvantages to that. This is already required for H1-B workers through the prevailing wage determination process.
sokoloff 5y ago
There are many jobs where the range of productivity is higher than 30%. Entertainment and athletics are obvious ones, but whether you think programmers of a given title/scope could be 10x different from each other, it seems like most people would agree that there's at least a 1.5x spread. Same would seem to be true in sales, modeling, acting, music, athletics, writing, film-making, and other fields involving significant creativity or where performance varies greatly.
jedberg 5y ago
It's funny, because for big companies they kind of do: https://h1bdata.info https://h1bdata.info
slt2021 5y ago
you can go to Department of Labor website and get this information (prevailing wage) for each job code and for each ZIP code

dougmwne 5y ago

There also a growing list of states that prohibit asking for salary history. Don’t ever give a salary history if asked. Only share if it is going to help in your negotiation. Advise everyone you know who is job seeking to do the same. This is a very dangerous question to ask because it locks in previous pay discrimination based on protected categories.

walshemj 5y ago
And anyone that has an atypical route into that profession. I have also sacked an agency over this and they are on my personal "Call First" list so if I am recommending agencies they wont be getting a call.
NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
Indeed - illegal in NY since 2020 under Labor Law Section 194. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LAB/194-A https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LAB/194-A
ne0flex 5y ago
>Don't ever give a salary history if asked. Very true. I believe NYC banned companies from asking for salary history a few years back. I was interviewing at a bank in NYC. I attempted to negotiate a salary about $20k - $30k from what I was making at the time, and the response from the interviewer was positive. I was then blindsided by the interviewer (who would've been my boss) after he asked what my current salary is and I let it slip out because I didn't know that it was illegal in NYC at the time to ask salary history. Afterwards, he said "huh, that's a big clip up, I think $X would be a bit more reasonable."
- aynyc 5y ago
  It's the entire STATE. The interviewer would've been in huge trouble if you report them.
  - ne0flex 5y ago
    I didn't realize it was the entire state that banned the practice. Good to know. I wonder, if a prospective employer were to ask you about salary history, what would be a good way to turn them down? I'm sure there are many employers that aren't aware that this has been outlawed. At the same time, I'm wondering, if you could lie and inflate your salary should you be asked about salary history by a prospective employer, given that they wouldn't be able to legally verify what you told them.

tyronehed 5y ago

Years ago, when I was living on the West Coast and interviewing for a job in NYC, the hiring manager misunderstood me, thinking I was asking for more money, upped their offer by $30k. I did not make the hiring manager aware of the misunderstanding. That sort of lucky accident would likely not occur after this law. But on balance, it's a great idea.

rlewkov 5y ago

Company: You want the salary range ... sure it's $5K to $600K, somewhere in that range, now F off

bberenberg 5y ago

This isn't about helping employees. This is about large orgs avoiding competing with smaller ones. Salary is one of the easy to filter and sort by metrics of a job. If your comp is anything other than base salary (working hours per week, work life balance, equity, non-standard benefits), then your job posting will now be ignored more often. It's hard enough for small companies to get high quality candidates, this will only make it worse.

jrockway 5y ago

I don't really see how this has an effect on anything. Companies will just make up positions depending on the salary ranges they expect. You'll interview for Software Engineer III, but they won't want to pay you that much, so they'll offer you a job for Software Engineer II. I always had the feelings that FAANGs did this. I saw a lot of people come into Google at Staff level because their past job had a similar salary range (but not responsibilities). No proof, of course, but generally they find the level that fits your salary expectations.

MichaelRazum 5y ago

What happens if a company want someone BUT after he is informed about working conditions and the tasks, he wants more than the max sallary. Do they break the law by offering it? Similar could happen if a person got some better offer from an other company and the would like to match it.

mal10c 5y ago

I actually disagree with this on the premise that all aspects of hiring are a two-way street. I've worked at quite a few different companies in different roles, and now I'm in a senior management position. I feel that these types of rules tend to place companies in a negative light - like their primary goal is to focus on company profits and screw over anyone that might be getting in their way. In my experience, this just isn't how it works. When I prepare an offer, I take into consideration a lot of factors that center around how much worth someone brings to the table (expertise, self-learning ability, attitude, flexibility to juggle diverse tasks, etc.). I then work out a range I'm comfortable offering. I then typically offer closer to the lower end of the range because I'm open to a counter offer (so long as it doesn't exceed the max rate I calculated). I then fully expect that person to counter, because I feel that it's on them to do the market research to determine how much they're worth. That's what I've done through my career and I've been happy with the result. I see applying/hiring as a game where the company is trying to find a way to afford as much talent as possible AND ensuring they can continue to pay that rate when times get tough and projects are cancelled/postponed. I also factor in annual bonuses for other employees, R&D budgets, etc. At the same time, applicants should be prepared knowing what they're worth. That takes some research, but it's not overly difficult. As they determine what they're worth, they also gain an understanding of a skillset they can work toward to reach the next rung of the ladder. At the end of the day, I really believe that the only person someone should compete against is himself. If comparing rates is THE issue, then I think the focus is misaligned. If rates are a concern, then start a dialog with your manager. Most managers are willing to go to bat to help out an employee if they really feel they deserve a higher wage. Just be prepared to make your case if you do that, explain WHY you deserve a higher rate - and it should be more than "well so and so is paid more than me." If in the end you're still unhappy with your rate/benefits, then consider a move, but be prepared to grow in your skillset if that's what's needed to reach your financial goals. Handle it professionally and communicate... Those are my thoughts.

fdgsdfogijq 5y ago
"senior management position" "really believe that the only person someone should compete against is himself" -> capitalist that wants to underpay people and justifies it through a lengthy verbose convoluted articulation "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -Upton Sinclair

rustoo 5y ago

Out of curiosity: Why do such laws happen at state-level and not at federal level? Most jobseekers would be looking at jobs all over the country, correct?

walterclifford 5y ago
> Most jobseekers would be looking at jobs all over the country, correct? Inside the HN tech bubble possibly. But outside of that the overwhelming majority of jobs are not in white-collar/remote-friendly work (and people change jobs far more often than they're willing to relocate so moving to a new state, or even city, for each new non-remote job isn't common either). So no the majority of jobseekers are not looking for work "all over the country" - most are looking for jobs within a reasonable commuting distance of where they live.
_moof 5y ago
Probably because the United States Congress is completely off the rails. Or, somewhat more charitably, there's no way in hell any bill that shifts the balance of power away from employers would make it through the Senate.

stephenboyd 5y ago

This is some progress but it's not as much transparency as it sounds. Companies will just list their low-balled official salary ranges for each position. That's just what the employee gets if they don't negotiate. The official salary ranges at my friend's employer are significantly below the local market rate and their base salary is actually significantly higher than the high point of the range for their level. So the situation of naive or disadvantaged employees making less than others will continue uninterrupted, but at least this will help the candidates who are so naive that they would otherwise ask for a salary less than the bottom of their level's range. And that's before even getting to the RSU situation that others are commenting on.

BadCookie 5y ago
Won’t strong candidates see the low range and decide to apply elsewhere to places that are honest about offering higher pay? Applications and interviews are exhausting. I’m not going to waste my time applying somewhere hoping that their listed salary range is inaccurate. This seems like a problem that will sort itself out over time. Edited to add: I agree that RSUs (and I will add cost of benefits) are an issue. It would be better if companies were required to list a range for total compensation.

N1H1L 5y ago

I wholeheartedly support this - and if you support free markets you should support it too. Markets are free when information asymmetry is reduced, and currently there exists one. The whole idea of free market of labour is that you will sell your labour to someone whose compensation you think is the best. Having more information obviously will increase your idea of how the market actually is, and allow a more informed decision - a freer market.

lordnacho 5y ago

So if the range is published, can you take someone to court for offering outside the range? What if you ask for the high end and then the firm decides the job is no longer available?

pandemicsoul 5y ago
It really just depends on what the final law is. Probably will just be something pretty simple that requires them to publish the salary and then everything else will be worked out in court. In lots of cases like this, there's just no incentive for people to go through a lengthy legal battle to try and sort it out unless it seems like blatant and provable discrimination was at work. But, in my experience in the nonprofit industry in the U.S. where there's been a concerted effort over the last few years to force employers to publish salaries up front (many places where jobs are shared, like email lists, job sites, etc. now require it), there's nothing stopping the employer from offering HIGHER than the range, and why would a job candidate balk at that? Nice surprise! The intention here is to stop employers from forcing people to go through a long hiring process only to end up offering them an absurdly low amount. In a market where employers hold the power and there's always another candidate waiting in line to take a job, this kind of behavior harms job seekers by wasting their time and demoralizing them, which hurts everyone.
- lordnacho 5y ago
  Yeah. Also by forcing all firms to do it the "we don't want to be disadvantaged" argument for the firms falls away. Could end up being net positive for both sides.

pandemicsoul 5y ago

I love how all the objections to this are freaking out because people won't be able to get job offers above the salary range (which isn't even true anyway), as if the biggest problem facing workers in this country is being offered too much money and this law would stop that.

WalterBright 5y ago

It may not bode as well for workers as the article thinks it does. For example, an employer may find out they're routinely overpaying their workers. An employer may find out, when interviewing a person, that they'll need to pay more than the maximum they were forced to advertise - so they can't pay more.

smt88 5y ago
No employer "routinely overpays" for workers without knowing it. It's a strategy, not something you stumble into by accident. > An employer may find out, when interviewing a person, that they'll need to pay more than the maximum they were forced to advertise - so they can't pay more. This makes no sense. The interviewee would simply not apply in the first place.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > No employer "routinely overpays" for workers without knowing it. There is no secret database of what is being paid. They don't know any more than the employee does, or can find out with google. > The interviewee would simply not apply in the first place. Both the employer and interviewee find out things in the process. The employer may want to ensure the interviewee doesn't take one of the other jobs he's looking into.
  - smt88 5y ago
    > There is no secret database of what is being paid. There are public and private databases of this info. Glassdoor is public, but you can also buy salary data from the credit bureaus. Every large company can easily find out what a single applicant has made in the past and/or get aggregated data regarding a particular title.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      You don't need to know what individuals make. You need to know in general what people in your skill level make, and that is easily googled.

WalterBright 5y ago

"An applicant would be forced to interview with more than three to six people for up to six months." Forced? Don't be absurd. "After the culmination of an arduous, emotionally draining interview process, an offer could be made that is far below the expectations of the eager candidate." There's nothing whatsoever preventing the candidate from, at the beginning, saying: "hey, before we spend a lot of time on this, what kind of salaries are we talking?" And at the end, if the candidate gets a lowball offer, there's nothing whatsoever preventing him making a counteroffer.

lsiebert 5y ago
Those of us who work in tech operate with a lot of privileges compared to many many other workers. All of these options technically exist, but make a lot of assumptions that aren't true for my non techie friends who are looking for work. It's not unusual in a lot of industries for companies to not continue to interview someone who doesn't let them decide everything about the process.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  If more people simply said "no", that wouldn't work for companies. Even so, I doubt that employers can afford to be that picky. If they could, everyone would be getting minimum wage. Everyone getting above minimum wage obviously has leverage.
  - diob 5y ago
    Just say "no"? And do what? Lot's of folks are supporting others, or need to support themselves. "Sorry my sweet daughter, no cancer treatment this week, I said no to that job." I have 0 clue why you think picky === minimum wage. It just means suppressed wages, which is highly documented. Even the big tech companies had agreements not to "poach".
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      I've encountered companies with such agreements. They still do it, they just don't make it obvious. Cartels like that are unstable, because each party has a massive incentive to cheat on it, and the advantage accrues to you.

Hnrobert42 5y ago

I’m pretty liberal. I support unions. I generally distrust corporations. At the same time, if this passes, my company will just stop hiring in New York. It’s not worth the risk of getting sued by every person who gets an offer lower than the maximum.

bradleyjg 5y ago
Colorado has already passed this. There’s been some fallout, people have reported job postings that say “remote anywhere except Colorado” but it’s hardly been catastrophic for their job market. NYC is an even bigger draw than Denver.
- Hnrobert42 5y ago
  Yeah. That’s likely what we will do.
notreallyserio 5y ago
How likely do you think that is? Have you been sued when an employee finds out a coworker with the same title earns more than them?
- Hnrobert42 5y ago
  It doesn’t matter. It’s not worth the risk and hassle.
ryan_lane 5y ago
This has been a law in California for years. Do you not hire there? This law is very similar. You're required to post ranges. They can be relatively wide. No one is suing for not getting the maximum, because this law doesn't make that a requirement.
- Hnrobert42 5y ago
  Interesting. i will have to check. We have CA employees, but I don’t k ow if we post jobs there. If we do, we’ll likely stop.

vmception 5y ago

> The laws were drafted, in large part, to help close the gender pay gap. HIRED’s annual recruiting reports found that a significant driver of this were candidates asking for far lower than other peers. Many times, companies would then offer that candidate a greater salary, which was still below the bolder or more comfortable peer. The candidate feels like their company is doing them a favor. So, this aspect should illuminate that many people are not aware that their own company is contributing to pay gaps. Any individual may in fact think the opposite, that it must be some other company with the proverbial bigoted shadow men in a board room disenfranchising everyone that doesn't look like them. When that picture isn't whats happening or isn't necessary, when candidates exacerbate this on their own. Could it be that the candidate has experience being turned down when asking higher rates? Perhaps. Could it be that the company doesnt even realize that they arent getting a deal with the candidate, but really just exacerbating pay gaps? That the candidates asking lower may be disproportionately certain genders and ethnicities? New York City is reducing this to anti-discrimination, making the penalties inherit discrimination frameworks without regard to the circumstances leading up to it. I think thats a great remedy, given how opaque and nuanced the reality really has been. We don't need to tweak candidate behavior or gradually retrain companies to notice gender and race to conditionally adjust, instead just make the salaries apparent for all.

TedShiller 5y ago

It requires publishing the minimum and maximum range. So they can always say [minimum wage, $1,000,000]