34 ms·

Newsom just signed California pay transparency bill

246 points by lsllc 4y ago

mountainriver 4y ago
I’m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand it could aid in reducing pay inequality and on the other it seems really restrictive to hiring. If I apply for a job and am overqualified so they want to pay me more, can they do that?
- pessimizer 4y ago
  I have no idea, but they could avoid that by posting a salary range that includes when they want to hire people who are overqualified.
- thomaslangston 4y ago
  1. The listed pay range can be any size. So they could put any number they want for the top end for overqualified applicants. 2. They can create a new position at any time with a higher range and offer you that position.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- brg 4y ago
  CEO salary transparency caused a rapid increase in C-level compensation, nearly 10 fold as it became a public race. https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2020/ https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2020/
  - missedthecue 4y ago
    Hmmm. They are graphing the data since 1965. Did equity options even exist then? Because they make up almost all of CEO pay these days. Wal-Mart CEO made $1.2 million in salary last year and the rest were stock options awards. If you stay consistent, CEO salary has probably increased very little since 1965. Either way I can't detect a causal link between c-level pay and salary disclosures. The CEO hiring market has always been quite small and I find it hard to believe that CEOs in the 1960s and 70s were getting taken advantage of and being underpaid
    - maerF0x0 4y ago
      the parent implied in > nearly 10 fold as it became a public race. Much like many forms of wealth, past a certain point it's merely vanity/competition
    - Animats 4y ago
      Er, no.[1] [1] https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2020/ https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2020/
      - missedthecue 4y ago
        You literally just linked to the same website in the comment I replied to. You added nothing to the conversation.
- sethammons 4y ago
  Similarly I applied (but didn't make it passed the second round of interviews) for a role with AWS that would have been about $900k. I got to set that expectation before the interview. I don't expect that to be as possible going forward with this law.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Why not? The employer is always free to update their pay range if they are interested in hiring you.
    - sethammons 4y ago
      I don't imagine them advertising that they are willing to pay that high; instead, I'd imagine that particular role to end with wage suppression
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        I do not understand. If you are able to “set the expectation” for work valued at $900k per year even before an interview, then surely they are betting they cannot find someone capable to hire for less.
- runako 4y ago
  This is trivial. If you interview a person for Junior SW Engineer, and after a round of interviews decide that they have the expertise to be your DevOps lead engineer, just hire them as DevOps lead. The law doesn't stipulate which for which roles you can/cannot hire a person, only that you must report their compensation and the role they ultimately do. (Similarly, when they change jobs in the company, that would impact your reporting going forward.)
LinkLink 4y ago
Now you can see which California jobs pay you enough to afford living there! Big news for all the CEO's out there.
jedberg 4y ago
I'm a big fan of pay transparency, but the objection noted in the article is a concern. If the categories are too broad, it will skew the data in a way that makes things look a lot worse than they are. But I'm sure a whole niche consulting industry will be born to help large companies massage their data to look good...
- giantg2 4y ago
  Exactly. The BLS does report on pay discrepancies, and those reports use a huge number of characteristics and controls compared to this. Odd that they didn't want to use that as a template.
- baby 4y ago
  Every regulation can have good and bad consequences. I think what matters is that a government can measure the impact of a law, and react quickly if it does not have the intended consequences.
annexrichmond 4y ago
> those with 100 or more employees or contractors will have to report median and mean hourly pay rates by job category and “each combination of race, ethnicity, and sex.” since excluding YOE could bias these values, I wonder if we will start seeing more granularity in job titles; Role I,II,III, Senior Role I,II,III also even at 100 employees, is that high enough such that it won't reveal individuals' salary, and thus a privacy violation? surely the bill most cover such an obvious counterexample
- Bilal_io 4y ago
  Serious question: which law protects salary information? And if this law exists, does it apply to employers only or does it extend beyond that?
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    > which law protects salary information? To my knowledge, none. There are some laws that exist about some groups (e.g. the IRS) disclosing salary data. But there are whole data-broker businesses built around getting salaries reported to them from employers and using that data.
  - cj 4y ago
    No law protects salary information AFAIK. Employers can disclose them if they choose (but they don’t for obvious reasons) and many (most?) employees prefer to not have the world know what their salary is.
  - dbingham 4y ago
    I am not a lawyer, but I'm not aware of any such law. Public employee salaries are already publicly posted. You can look up the salaries of any public employee - including those at state universities, municipalities, etc Honestly, I think we'd all be better off if corporations were required to publicly post not just salaries but all financial information. I think we should have an open books law. It would help level the playing field in all manner of negotiations, make it easier to study the economy and find out what's really going on, and would make it much, much harder to get away with corporate malfeasance. It wouldn't give any particular corporation a competitive advantage over any other because they would all have each other's information.
mancerayder 4y ago
It will lead to some workaround. A bigger part of the pay in the form of bonuses or discretionary grants, for example. What exactly does posting race and gender data accomplish exactly, specifically? Some countries (including one that coined the term Liberty, Equality, Fraternity) ban the use of gender and race statistics in the interest of equity. Is California a more equitable state than other states? Will this bill make it less inequitable? Are these questions being considered.
- awb 4y ago
  > It will lead to some workaround. A bigger part of the pay in the form of bonuses or discretionary grants, for example. How will existing commission-based compensation be reported, like sales and recruiting jobs?
- r00fus 4y ago
  > Some countries (including one that coined the term Liberty, Equality, Fraternity) ban the use of gender and race statistics in the interest of equity. So what does a different jurisdiction (e.g. France) have to do with a California law? I posit nothing will change, job reporting/requirements are highly dependent on jurisdiction, and companies are well versed in juggling those differences.
- giantg2 4y ago
  "What exactly does posting race and gender data accomplish exactly, specifically?" Depends on what the data says and who you ask. My own assumption, based on the exclusion of many data points, is that it will be used as political ammunition for further wage laws based on personal characteristics/identity. Perhaps along with that, it will catch some abusive employers, or prompt underpaid employees to quit.
  - nonethewiser 4y ago
    It will probably result in paying majorities less to appease the mob that this metric was written for.
gs7 4y ago
The article doesn't mention it, but according to https://www.calpeculiarities.com/2022/09/27/sb-1162-approved-prepare-for-greater-pay-transparency-requirements/ https://www.calpeculiarities.com/2022/09/27/sb-1162-approved..., this will go in effect on January 1, 2023.
tbrownaw 4y ago
Has anyone published a review of the actual-in-practice effects of ...Colorado I think it was? doing the same thing a little while ago?
- Bilal_io 4y ago
  I don't have a review to reference, but I've heard that certain companies stopped hiring in Colorado, they even explicitly excluded Coloradoan in their job listings. Here is a website tracking companies that do it: https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/ https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/
  - jedberg 4y ago
    It'll be a lot harder to exclude California, which represents 10% of the population, and even more of the population of professionals who can work remotely.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      And NYC starts Nov 1. And WA state starts Jan 1. And NY state is just waiting on governor’s signature, which after 270 days will start. So CO/NYC/WA/CA will be ~62M Americans, and if NY gets added, ~74M Americans.
  - burnhamup 4y ago
    I saw the Colorado excluded in job postings in the immediate aftermath. I'm starting to see more and more companies listings a Colorado salary range in recent listings.
gibsonf1 4y ago
I would guess that the main outcome will be more companies fleeing the state.
- jedberg 4y ago
  First off "companies fleeing the state" is way overblown. A couple companies moved their legal HQ, but for example the Tesla office in California is still expanding. They just "moved" for tax reasons. But the people stayed here. Secondly, I doubt many companies will leave given that all their competitors will also have to publish this information.
  - gibsonf1 4y ago
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/adammillsap/2021/08/27/businesses-are-fleeing-california-along-with-its-residents-and-president-biden-should-pay-attention/?sh=70c116122327 https://www.forbes.com/sites/adammillsap/2021/08/27/business...
    - triceratops 4y ago
      Why should President Biden pay attention if businesses are "fleeing" California, as long as they're fleeing to another state?
    - distrill 4y ago
      lol
    - UncleMeat 4y ago
      Forbes contributors are just unedited bloggers.
    - jedberg 4y ago
      That article only backs up what I said. That business headquarters are moving but not the employees.
- no_wizard 4y ago
  Its hardly the only state to do this. Many states that passed these laws already, such as Colorado, Connecticut, Nevada, Washington, New York, New Jersey and many more are introduced in state legislation around the country. I don't see this as anti-business either. If anything, it makes it easier to investigate how your competitors are paying their workers and act accordingly.
awb 4y ago
> Under the law, employers with 15 or more workers will be required to include pay ranges in job postings I wonder how this will work with small, remote-friendly companies hiring a CA employee and forgetting (or not knowing) to put a salary range on their job post. What's the financial / legal consequence?
- cyberlurker 4y ago
  Not sure of the answer but I have seen job postings with a special Colorado salary range to comply with their law.
- r00fus 4y ago
  Having read all the details it's not clear that this applies to non-CA incorporated companies hiring remote workers who happen to reside in CA (or move to CA). I'm not even sure how they could enforce in that case, honestly. If you're incorporated in CA, it's pretty clear you have CA state requirements to comply with.
fictionfuture 4y ago
This is scary for employers and might be the most misguided move California’s made yet. Going to be a “whooshing” sound of companies headed East… Idealism should not trump rationality; I cannot believe this actually passed into law
- scrumbledober 4y ago
  California is a pretty huge talent pool to ignore, especially with Colorado already passing a similar law and many other states moving similar bills through legislature.
- r00fus 4y ago
  Let those companies that want to ignore 10% of the workforce go ahead. I'd say that's more idealist than complying with similar laws already enacted in other states as well.
- s800 4y ago
  It's not idealism, it's shifting power to labor / the individual.
Zaheer 4y ago
Link to the full legislation text: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB1162 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml... Note that this legislation primarily covers just salary ranges. For most tech companies equity is a large component of compensation. Definitely a step in the right direction nonetheless.
r00fus 4y ago
So how are you supposed to look up salaries by company? According to the shrm.com [1] article linked in TFA: "Most of the debate this year around SB 1162 focused on a public shaming provision that would have published pay data reports to the public on a state website." If that's the case, would someone need to scrape this information across job sites to get aggregate ranges for a company and/or job title? [1] https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/state-and-local-updates/pages/california-proposed-legislation.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/...
hayst4ck 4y ago
Companies likely already have access to your salary history because Equifax sells it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753 So if you think your salary information is private, it's not private from the entity most able to abuse your salary history to suppress your wages, a new employer.
- Invictus0 4y ago
  How to freeze your work number (copied from reddit): Create an account using one of your employers (old or new, it doesn't matter). If you have problems with this step, then skip to step 2 and ask the CSR for help with this. Call the customer service at 866-222-5880 (FYI, it helps to call early in the morning when most people are asleep) Choose option 2 for "Report a problem..." Tell the customer service rep (CSR) that you want to freeze your SSN on TWN. Verbally verify that this will keep 3rd parties from accessing the info. At this point, the CSR may try to direct you to the online form, but you need to be firm and say that you want to complete the process over the phone. If they still try to direct you to the online form, say that you will not be satisfied until the process is completed over the phone. I know this can be uncomfortable for some folks to challenge someone like this, but it's the easiest way. At this point, the CSR will ask for personal information including your account name (created in step 1) SSN, DOB, address, email The rep will send you a one-time code using the method of your choice (phone, text, email, mail). I chose text message. Tell them the code verbally over the phone Congrats. Your SSN is now frozen on TWN, preventing 3rd parties from access without your authority. You will receive a confirmation email Optional 8) If your CSR was friendly and helpful, ask to speak with their manager and give them a little praise. Pull a reverse-Karen I prefer this method because it prevents you from having to mail or email any documents and you get instant confirmation and a case number to review your status. The whole process took like 10 minutes over the phone.
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    See also https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze/ https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze/
  - 4y ago
jmyeet 4y ago
Quite a few commenters note (correctly) that non-salary compensation is a big part of tech compensation. This law isn't for you. This law is for "normal" jobs. Teachers, admin assistants, truck drivers, nurses, logistics people, etc. These are jobs that are almost entirely salary or an hourly wage for which pay transparency is incredibly useful in stopping people getting taken advantage of. To show you how this matters a lot of remote jobs were previously advertised as "not available to residents of Colorado". Why? Because Colorado had a similar pay transparency requirement. California is a much bigger fish so it's going to be much harder to do this. If you have Oregon, Washington, New York and the Northeast follow suit it'll become a de facto norm in non-disclosing states. I fully support empowering workers.
- int_19h 4y ago
  It is for us, too, it's just that it doesn't quite go far enough. But once this is established, it will be easier to build on it.
endisneigh 4y ago
Good. Now we need a few things: - interquartile ranges - max spread per job title - range should be the IRS reported income, not the salary, e.g. TC.
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Do we? I think everyone who would care about this is only likely to make a comment on a website and not actually push for it, which is a pretty good measure of whether we need something.
factsarelolz 4y ago
How can I report companies that fail to adhere to this law or put insane ranges? It’s already being abused by companies for Colorado salaries. I’m sick and tired of seeing 60-225k ranges. It’s complete bullshit. No person filling junior position will ever be offered close to 225k.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Why is this a problem? The purpose of the pay range is not to help you in your personal negotiation. It is to inform you of the going price in certain markets. If you think $60k is too low, find a different business or a different labor market to sell to. If you think $225k is too low, same thing. If you want to maximize your own income, then you should obtain offers from competing buyers and pit them against each other.
  - waynesonfire 4y ago
    Why have the requirement to post salary range when everyone is posting $0 to $infinite? Seems like a loophole.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      Everyone is not posting $0 to infinite. See Colorado job listings. The most important number is the bottom of the pay range. It is fantastic for high school students and anyone looking to sell their labor can see what the going price is by sorting the bottom pay range and eliminating businesses or occupations where the bottom pay range is too low. While it is obviously known that being a doctor pays better than flipping burgers, seeing price numbers can help project future cash flow and help people make better decisions, especially for employers offering the lowest wages. And of course, people who are earning $17 because they were hired a few years ago do not have to go out and interview at other places to find out their employer is offering new people $18 per hour.
Sindrome 4y ago
jfmatth 4y ago
notinfuriated 4y ago
> Under the law, employers with 15 or more workers will be required to include pay ranges in job postings, and those with 100 or more employees or contractors will have to report median and mean hourly pay rates by job category and “each combination of race, ethnicity, and sex.” In a company with just over 100 people, this could mean, in some cases, it's easy to figure out the exact salary of specific people in the organization. I'm skeptical this is at all good for privacy, but I know CA govt doesn't care about this.
- bsimpson 4y ago
  "The black guy makes $22 per hour."
- bpodgursky 4y ago
  The differentiation between race and ethnicity will actually out a ton of black hispanics even in larger organizations.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    I agree the race/ethnicity and other stipulations not directly related to price transparency are a waste of resources and potentially harmful for political discourse. Just letting the prices be public would have solved the other “problems” without enabling useless dialogue about nebulous classifications.
  - ASinclair 4y ago
    Forgive my ignorance. What are the consequences of being outed as a black hispanic?
    - saagarjha 4y ago
      I assume it’s a demographic that is measured on the typical set of questions but with a small proportion of the total population, making it easier to deanonymize.
    - gretch 4y ago
frellus 4y ago
"SB 1162 doesn’t make clear how the law applies to companies that employ workers remotely" There is always going to be a push/pull with regulations. Considering the above statement, thinking about regulatory burdens, companies may try to work around them and, if necessary, hire people out of state to avoid reporting. So let's forget about diversity for a second in terms of gender and race and pretend it doesn't factor into decision making at all: Companies want to hire competitively; the want the best, experienced worker for the least cost possible. Anyone who thinks companies hire without regard to cost is living in a fantasy land and they flunked Econ 101. So what will happen as a result of this bill? Companies will report their average wages and make it hard to find because an "average" means that some people are above it, some are below it. If everyone who see's they're "below" the average demands at least a match to the 'average', guess what!?? The average changes! Because there were people who were paid above average. Of course, everyone should be paid fairly based on skill, but I'm sorry -- one of those skills happens to be negotiation. If we want everyone to be paid the same, we shall all be dragged downward, not upward. I, for one, don't want to be paid the average, I want a high salary -- but not so high that I'm the top paid person (because guess what happens when a company has to cut expenses?)
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  > If everyone who see's they're "below" the average demands at least a match to the 'average', guess what!?? The average changes! Because there were people who were paid above average. Another option is the employer denies the employee’s request for a raise.
- ajmurmann 4y ago
  That sounds true. In practice I've been talking with people about their paybands for years and everyone understands that sometimes they will be below their payband's midpoint. In dozens of conversations like this that hasn't been a problem even once. The key is though to be able to explain why someone is placed in the payband where they are. Understanding where your employees stand and what they need to work on to progress is a key manager competency.
  - 4y ago
bergenty 4y ago
Newsom for president. He seems to be the most likely to play the game.
- maerF0x0 4y ago
  > play the game. What do you mean?
jmugan 4y ago
I guess I'm uncomfortable with adding all of these restrictions and hoops to hiring people. I worry that it is a death-by-a-thousand-cuts situation, and employers will be motivated to look to alternatives, like robots and offshore centers.
- feet 4y ago
  As if they weren't already doing that anyway?
  - jmugan 4y ago
    Sure, but with every new hoop and restriction we tilt the scales further.
  - diob 4y ago
    Yeah, reminds me of how they fight against raising minimum wage saying robots are going to take jobs, but where are we now? There still aren't enough workers, and turns out robots are hard.
    - spullara 4y ago
      McDonalds went from 400k employees in 2010 to 200k employees just a few years later.
baby 4y ago
It's interesting how many people in the comments are against more transparency. It's almost like they have something to lose from this bill.
- radicaldreamer 4y ago
  There's a sense that pay transparency will increase competition for lucrative roles and decrease overall comp (but perhaps increase average comp). A lot of people think they have it good and it'll be worse when there's pay transparency (even though this is not true transparency, it's simply public pay bands for listed roles).
  - tenpies 4y ago
    To put it simply: ignorance is bliss. Many people are underpaid, but are happy. Telling them they are underpaid and broadcasting it to the world is a great way to destroy that happiness. This becomes even worst when there are non-monetary benefits to a job (e.g. you highly value working outdoors, beautiful scenery, a fantastic commute).
    - int_19h 4y ago
      You don't want to go look up salary bands for the position that you already hold.
- donw 4y ago
  Perhaps. Laws usually do precisely the opposite of what their titles describe. The PATRIOT act was quite possibly the most unpatriotic thing Congress could have done. The Inflation Reduction Act will increase inflation. I wouldn't be surprised if I read this law and found that it actually criminalized sharing your salary. Moreover, the devil is always in the details. Who is exempted? Does this cover total compensation, or just salary? How much burden does this place on smaller employers? More often than not, regulation like this is a tool for large businesses to strangle startups in the crib with compliance costs.
  - 4y ago
eric4smith 4y ago
In my opinion this will negate the negotiation prowess of savvy employees. A big reason for salary disparities in the same positions is that some people simply negotiate better. It also does not account for more experienced candidates. I guess it could push people towards similar salaries over time in the same position. That’s why it smells faintly like socialism.
- whatarethembits 4y ago
  This is a good thing. Your pay shouldn’t depend on how good you were at negotiating on interview day. People with a lesser focus on social engineering don’t deserve lower pay for same work.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    To the extent that negotiation is a skill that will used productively on the job, it seems like rewarding it is appropriate. I assume you'd rather hire a head of sales who was good at negotiating than one who was terrible at it.
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    Negotiation doesn't work without substance. You need to be desirable in the first place and be one of the handful of people that can make a huge difference to a company.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  How does requiring publicized pay ranges on job listings prevent negotiation?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
zephrx1111 4y ago
My naive 2 cents: 1. Knowing others salary is not a right 2. Employer should have the option to be transparent or not. You can incentivize it, but better not force it.
- presentation 4y ago
  This law doesn't result in 1), and 2) is the status quo, where practically no employer ever chooses to be transparent—the typical worker is the loser here.
maerF0x0 4y ago
> “each combination of race, ethnicity, and sex.” Leaving out "hours worked" or "Value provided" is going to create a race to the the bottom. If my salary is now capped by my peers then I may as well instead work less / less hard. (or, i suppose, only work at companies where everyone is a workaholic)
- Spivak 4y ago
  You should, I maybe work 25 hours a week and and the only people in the company that make more than me are directors and C levels. And everyone on my team makes the same. Work life balance is important and working 20 or 80 hours won’t get you more pay, only more responsibility. I have one workaholic team member and we literally force him to take days off. Your taking the pessimistic view, your salary is now floored by the highest quality most value producing person the company actually wants. If that floor is low then they clearly don’t want any rockstars on the team so kick your feet up and relax. And if the floor is high you found your group of live to workers.
  - maerF0x0 4y ago
    I would rather work 50 hours per week and make a lot more now than have an "easy" WLB. Right now I need money, but the rules setup make it super tough (this plus progressive taxation that doesn't care how much money you average across life, just this year-- eg you could earn $1M in one year and nothing for 19 and still pay very high taxes while others earn $50k over 20 and they get an attractive rate).
- lumost 4y ago
  > Leaving out "hours worked" or "Value provided" is going to create a race to the the bottom. If my salary is now capped by my peers then I may as well instead work less / less hard. For the vast majority of employees, this was always the case. For my entire career the only way to get a raise commensurate with your value was to switch companies. After 6x job changes over 8 years + a 4 year stretch at the latest firm I've increased my compensation by ~10x. The most any manager was able to get me for a raise in 1 year was ~10%, and that was in a year that the standard tech salary went up by 20%.
omginternets 4y ago
Are these salary ranges to be announced when hiring or post hoc? In the former case, it seems like this would effectively cap salaries to the announced range. I’m generally quite amenable to the idea that American workers are not sufficiently protected, but I don’t understand how this doesn’t remove negotiating power, at least in the upper quartile of employees at a given firm. Edit: confused by the downvote. Maybe point out what I’m missing?
halffaday 4y ago
Employers will just create superfluous titles so they don’t have to price-match. My own opinion is that wages are completely unfair and never can be. Some people produce value several times their wage but it isn’t socially acceptable to pay someone with an important-sounding title minimum wage because of mediocre personal performance. It’s always safer to overpay your dead weight and underpay high-performers.
LatteLazy 4y ago
I don't know why they don't just go the whole hog and require full disclosure, at least internally. For many companies, for some of the groups listed, this will defacto be the case (if you're the only Chinese Woman at your 100 person company, your salary is now public record). Doing this would enable people to negotiate more effectively, require management to actually justify their decisions and has been shown to reduce actual pay gaps where they occur. Maybe that's too far too fast? But it is where we should be aiming.
Mandatum 4y ago
I guess leadership's moving to Texas..

246 points by lsllc 4y ago

I’m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand it could aid in reducing pay inequality and on the other it seems really restrictive to hiring. If I apply for a job and am overqualified so they want to pay me more, can they do that?

pessimizer 4y ago
I have no idea, but they could avoid that by posting a salary range that includes when they want to hire people who are overqualified.
thomaslangston 4y ago
1. The listed pay range can be any size. So they could put any number they want for the top end for overqualified applicants. 2. They can create a new position at any time with a higher range and offer you that position.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
brg 4y ago
CEO salary transparency caused a rapid increase in C-level compensation, nearly 10 fold as it became a public race. https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2020/ https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2020/
- missedthecue 4y ago
  Hmmm. They are graphing the data since 1965. Did equity options even exist then? Because they make up almost all of CEO pay these days. Wal-Mart CEO made $1.2 million in salary last year and the rest were stock options awards. If you stay consistent, CEO salary has probably increased very little since 1965. Either way I can't detect a causal link between c-level pay and salary disclosures. The CEO hiring market has always been quite small and I find it hard to believe that CEOs in the 1960s and 70s were getting taken advantage of and being underpaid
  - maerF0x0 4y ago
    the parent implied in > nearly 10 fold as it became a public race. Much like many forms of wealth, past a certain point it's merely vanity/competition
  - Animats 4y ago
    Er, no.[1] [1] https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2020/ https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2020/
    - missedthecue 4y ago
      You literally just linked to the same website in the comment I replied to. You added nothing to the conversation.
sethammons 4y ago
Similarly I applied (but didn't make it passed the second round of interviews) for a role with AWS that would have been about $900k. I got to set that expectation before the interview. I don't expect that to be as possible going forward with this law.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Why not? The employer is always free to update their pay range if they are interested in hiring you.
  - sethammons 4y ago
    I don't imagine them advertising that they are willing to pay that high; instead, I'd imagine that particular role to end with wage suppression
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      I do not understand. If you are able to “set the expectation” for work valued at $900k per year even before an interview, then surely they are betting they cannot find someone capable to hire for less.
runako 4y ago
This is trivial. If you interview a person for Junior SW Engineer, and after a round of interviews decide that they have the expertise to be your DevOps lead engineer, just hire them as DevOps lead. The law doesn't stipulate which for which roles you can/cannot hire a person, only that you must report their compensation and the role they ultimately do. (Similarly, when they change jobs in the company, that would impact your reporting going forward.)

LinkLink 4y ago

Now you can see which California jobs pay you enough to afford living there! Big news for all the CEO's out there.

jedberg 4y ago

I'm a big fan of pay transparency, but the objection noted in the article is a concern. If the categories are too broad, it will skew the data in a way that makes things look a lot worse than they are. But I'm sure a whole niche consulting industry will be born to help large companies massage their data to look good...

giantg2 4y ago
Exactly. The BLS does report on pay discrepancies, and those reports use a huge number of characteristics and controls compared to this. Odd that they didn't want to use that as a template.
baby 4y ago
Every regulation can have good and bad consequences. I think what matters is that a government can measure the impact of a law, and react quickly if it does not have the intended consequences.

annexrichmond 4y ago

> those with 100 or more employees or contractors will have to report median and mean hourly pay rates by job category and “each combination of race, ethnicity, and sex.” since excluding YOE could bias these values, I wonder if we will start seeing more granularity in job titles; Role I,II,III, Senior Role I,II,III also even at 100 employees, is that high enough such that it won't reveal individuals' salary, and thus a privacy violation? surely the bill most cover such an obvious counterexample

Bilal_io 4y ago
Serious question: which law protects salary information? And if this law exists, does it apply to employers only or does it extend beyond that?
- HWR_14 4y ago
  > which law protects salary information? To my knowledge, none. There are some laws that exist about some groups (e.g. the IRS) disclosing salary data. But there are whole data-broker businesses built around getting salaries reported to them from employers and using that data.
- cj 4y ago
  No law protects salary information AFAIK. Employers can disclose them if they choose (but they don’t for obvious reasons) and many (most?) employees prefer to not have the world know what their salary is.
- dbingham 4y ago
  I am not a lawyer, but I'm not aware of any such law. Public employee salaries are already publicly posted. You can look up the salaries of any public employee - including those at state universities, municipalities, etc Honestly, I think we'd all be better off if corporations were required to publicly post not just salaries but all financial information. I think we should have an open books law. It would help level the playing field in all manner of negotiations, make it easier to study the economy and find out what's really going on, and would make it much, much harder to get away with corporate malfeasance. It wouldn't give any particular corporation a competitive advantage over any other because they would all have each other's information.

mancerayder 4y ago

It will lead to some workaround. A bigger part of the pay in the form of bonuses or discretionary grants, for example. What exactly does posting race and gender data accomplish exactly, specifically? Some countries (including one that coined the term Liberty, Equality, Fraternity) ban the use of gender and race statistics in the interest of equity. Is California a more equitable state than other states? Will this bill make it less inequitable? Are these questions being considered.

awb 4y ago
> It will lead to some workaround. A bigger part of the pay in the form of bonuses or discretionary grants, for example. How will existing commission-based compensation be reported, like sales and recruiting jobs?
r00fus 4y ago
> Some countries (including one that coined the term Liberty, Equality, Fraternity) ban the use of gender and race statistics in the interest of equity. So what does a different jurisdiction (e.g. France) have to do with a California law? I posit nothing will change, job reporting/requirements are highly dependent on jurisdiction, and companies are well versed in juggling those differences.
giantg2 4y ago
"What exactly does posting race and gender data accomplish exactly, specifically?" Depends on what the data says and who you ask. My own assumption, based on the exclusion of many data points, is that it will be used as political ammunition for further wage laws based on personal characteristics/identity. Perhaps along with that, it will catch some abusive employers, or prompt underpaid employees to quit.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  It will probably result in paying majorities less to appease the mob that this metric was written for.

gs7 4y ago

The article doesn't mention it, but according to https://www.calpeculiarities.com/2022/09/27/sb-1162-approved-prepare-for-greater-pay-transparency-requirements/ https://www.calpeculiarities.com/2022/09/27/sb-1162-approved..., this will go in effect on January 1, 2023.

tbrownaw 4y ago

Has anyone published a review of the actual-in-practice effects of ...Colorado I think it was? doing the same thing a little while ago?

Bilal_io 4y ago
I don't have a review to reference, but I've heard that certain companies stopped hiring in Colorado, they even explicitly excluded Coloradoan in their job listings. Here is a website tracking companies that do it: https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/ https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/
- jedberg 4y ago
  It'll be a lot harder to exclude California, which represents 10% of the population, and even more of the population of professionals who can work remotely.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    And NYC starts Nov 1. And WA state starts Jan 1. And NY state is just waiting on governor’s signature, which after 270 days will start. So CO/NYC/WA/CA will be ~62M Americans, and if NY gets added, ~74M Americans.
- burnhamup 4y ago
  I saw the Colorado excluded in job postings in the immediate aftermath. I'm starting to see more and more companies listings a Colorado salary range in recent listings.

gibsonf1 4y ago

I would guess that the main outcome will be more companies fleeing the state.

jedberg 4y ago
First off "companies fleeing the state" is way overblown. A couple companies moved their legal HQ, but for example the Tesla office in California is still expanding. They just "moved" for tax reasons. But the people stayed here. Secondly, I doubt many companies will leave given that all their competitors will also have to publish this information.
- gibsonf1 4y ago
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/adammillsap/2021/08/27/businesses-are-fleeing-california-along-with-its-residents-and-president-biden-should-pay-attention/?sh=70c116122327 https://www.forbes.com/sites/adammillsap/2021/08/27/business...
  - triceratops 4y ago
    Why should President Biden pay attention if businesses are "fleeing" California, as long as they're fleeing to another state?
  - distrill 4y ago
    lol
  - UncleMeat 4y ago
    Forbes contributors are just unedited bloggers.
  - jedberg 4y ago
    That article only backs up what I said. That business headquarters are moving but not the employees.
no_wizard 4y ago
Its hardly the only state to do this. Many states that passed these laws already, such as Colorado, Connecticut, Nevada, Washington, New York, New Jersey and many more are introduced in state legislation around the country. I don't see this as anti-business either. If anything, it makes it easier to investigate how your competitors are paying their workers and act accordingly.

awb 4y ago

> Under the law, employers with 15 or more workers will be required to include pay ranges in job postings I wonder how this will work with small, remote-friendly companies hiring a CA employee and forgetting (or not knowing) to put a salary range on their job post. What's the financial / legal consequence?

cyberlurker 4y ago
Not sure of the answer but I have seen job postings with a special Colorado salary range to comply with their law.
r00fus 4y ago
Having read all the details it's not clear that this applies to non-CA incorporated companies hiring remote workers who happen to reside in CA (or move to CA). I'm not even sure how they could enforce in that case, honestly. If you're incorporated in CA, it's pretty clear you have CA state requirements to comply with.

fictionfuture 4y ago

This is scary for employers and might be the most misguided move California’s made yet. Going to be a “whooshing” sound of companies headed East… Idealism should not trump rationality; I cannot believe this actually passed into law

scrumbledober 4y ago
California is a pretty huge talent pool to ignore, especially with Colorado already passing a similar law and many other states moving similar bills through legislature.
r00fus 4y ago
Let those companies that want to ignore 10% of the workforce go ahead. I'd say that's more idealist than complying with similar laws already enacted in other states as well.
s800 4y ago
It's not idealism, it's shifting power to labor / the individual.

Zaheer 4y ago

Link to the full legislation text: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB1162 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml... Note that this legislation primarily covers just salary ranges. For most tech companies equity is a large component of compensation. Definitely a step in the right direction nonetheless.

r00fus 4y ago

So how are you supposed to look up salaries by company? According to the shrm.com [1] article linked in TFA: "Most of the debate this year around SB 1162 focused on a public shaming provision that would have published pay data reports to the public on a state website." If that's the case, would someone need to scrape this information across job sites to get aggregate ranges for a company and/or job title? [1] https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/state-and-local-updates/pages/california-proposed-legislation.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/...

hayst4ck 4y ago

Companies likely already have access to your salary history because Equifax sells it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753 So if you think your salary information is private, it's not private from the entity most able to abuse your salary history to suppress your wages, a new employer.

Invictus0 4y ago
How to freeze your work number (copied from reddit): Create an account using one of your employers (old or new, it doesn't matter). If you have problems with this step, then skip to step 2 and ask the CSR for help with this. Call the customer service at 866-222-5880 (FYI, it helps to call early in the morning when most people are asleep) Choose option 2 for "Report a problem..." Tell the customer service rep (CSR) that you want to freeze your SSN on TWN. Verbally verify that this will keep 3rd parties from accessing the info. At this point, the CSR may try to direct you to the online form, but you need to be firm and say that you want to complete the process over the phone. If they still try to direct you to the online form, say that you will not be satisfied until the process is completed over the phone. I know this can be uncomfortable for some folks to challenge someone like this, but it's the easiest way. At this point, the CSR will ask for personal information including your account name (created in step 1) SSN, DOB, address, email The rep will send you a one-time code using the method of your choice (phone, text, email, mail). I chose text message. Tell them the code verbally over the phone Congrats. Your SSN is now frozen on TWN, preventing 3rd parties from access without your authority. You will receive a confirmation email Optional 8) If your CSR was friendly and helpful, ask to speak with their manager and give them a little praise. Pull a reverse-Karen I prefer this method because it prevents you from having to mail or email any documents and you get instant confirmation and a case number to review your status. The whole process took like 10 minutes over the phone.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  See also https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze/ https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze/
- 4y ago

jmyeet 4y ago

Quite a few commenters note (correctly) that non-salary compensation is a big part of tech compensation. This law isn't for you. This law is for "normal" jobs. Teachers, admin assistants, truck drivers, nurses, logistics people, etc. These are jobs that are almost entirely salary or an hourly wage for which pay transparency is incredibly useful in stopping people getting taken advantage of. To show you how this matters a lot of remote jobs were previously advertised as "not available to residents of Colorado". Why? Because Colorado had a similar pay transparency requirement. California is a much bigger fish so it's going to be much harder to do this. If you have Oregon, Washington, New York and the Northeast follow suit it'll become a de facto norm in non-disclosing states. I fully support empowering workers.

int_19h 4y ago
It is for us, too, it's just that it doesn't quite go far enough. But once this is established, it will be easier to build on it.

endisneigh 4y ago

Good. Now we need a few things: - interquartile ranges - max spread per job title - range should be the IRS reported income, not the salary, e.g. TC.

renewiltord 4y ago
Do we? I think everyone who would care about this is only likely to make a comment on a website and not actually push for it, which is a pretty good measure of whether we need something.

factsarelolz 4y ago

How can I report companies that fail to adhere to this law or put insane ranges? It’s already being abused by companies for Colorado salaries. I’m sick and tired of seeing 60-225k ranges. It’s complete bullshit. No person filling junior position will ever be offered close to 225k.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
Why is this a problem? The purpose of the pay range is not to help you in your personal negotiation. It is to inform you of the going price in certain markets. If you think $60k is too low, find a different business or a different labor market to sell to. If you think $225k is too low, same thing. If you want to maximize your own income, then you should obtain offers from competing buyers and pit them against each other.
- waynesonfire 4y ago
  Why have the requirement to post salary range when everyone is posting $0 to $infinite? Seems like a loophole.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Everyone is not posting $0 to infinite. See Colorado job listings. The most important number is the bottom of the pay range. It is fantastic for high school students and anyone looking to sell their labor can see what the going price is by sorting the bottom pay range and eliminating businesses or occupations where the bottom pay range is too low. While it is obviously known that being a doctor pays better than flipping burgers, seeing price numbers can help project future cash flow and help people make better decisions, especially for employers offering the lowest wages. And of course, people who are earning $17 because they were hired a few years ago do not have to go out and interview at other places to find out their employer is offering new people $18 per hour.

Sindrome 4y ago

jfmatth 4y ago

notinfuriated 4y ago

> Under the law, employers with 15 or more workers will be required to include pay ranges in job postings, and those with 100 or more employees or contractors will have to report median and mean hourly pay rates by job category and “each combination of race, ethnicity, and sex.” In a company with just over 100 people, this could mean, in some cases, it's easy to figure out the exact salary of specific people in the organization. I'm skeptical this is at all good for privacy, but I know CA govt doesn't care about this.

bsimpson 4y ago
"The black guy makes $22 per hour."
bpodgursky 4y ago
The differentiation between race and ethnicity will actually out a ton of black hispanics even in larger organizations.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  I agree the race/ethnicity and other stipulations not directly related to price transparency are a waste of resources and potentially harmful for political discourse. Just letting the prices be public would have solved the other “problems” without enabling useless dialogue about nebulous classifications.
- ASinclair 4y ago
  Forgive my ignorance. What are the consequences of being outed as a black hispanic?
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    I assume it’s a demographic that is measured on the typical set of questions but with a small proportion of the total population, making it easier to deanonymize.
  - gretch 4y ago

frellus 4y ago

"SB 1162 doesn’t make clear how the law applies to companies that employ workers remotely" There is always going to be a push/pull with regulations. Considering the above statement, thinking about regulatory burdens, companies may try to work around them and, if necessary, hire people out of state to avoid reporting. So let's forget about diversity for a second in terms of gender and race and pretend it doesn't factor into decision making at all: Companies want to hire competitively; the want the best, experienced worker for the least cost possible. Anyone who thinks companies hire without regard to cost is living in a fantasy land and they flunked Econ 101. So what will happen as a result of this bill? Companies will report their average wages and make it hard to find because an "average" means that some people are above it, some are below it. If everyone who see's they're "below" the average demands at least a match to the 'average', guess what!?? The average changes! Because there were people who were paid above average. Of course, everyone should be paid fairly based on skill, but I'm sorry -- one of those skills happens to be negotiation. If we want everyone to be paid the same, we shall all be dragged downward, not upward. I, for one, don't want to be paid the average, I want a high salary -- but not so high that I'm the top paid person (because guess what happens when a company has to cut expenses?)

lotsofpulp 4y ago
> If everyone who see's they're "below" the average demands at least a match to the 'average', guess what!?? The average changes! Because there were people who were paid above average. Another option is the employer denies the employee’s request for a raise.
ajmurmann 4y ago
That sounds true. In practice I've been talking with people about their paybands for years and everyone understands that sometimes they will be below their payband's midpoint. In dozens of conversations like this that hasn't been a problem even once. The key is though to be able to explain why someone is placed in the payband where they are. Understanding where your employees stand and what they need to work on to progress is a key manager competency.
- 4y ago

bergenty 4y ago

Newsom for president. He seems to be the most likely to play the game.

maerF0x0 4y ago
> play the game. What do you mean?

jmugan 4y ago

I guess I'm uncomfortable with adding all of these restrictions and hoops to hiring people. I worry that it is a death-by-a-thousand-cuts situation, and employers will be motivated to look to alternatives, like robots and offshore centers.

feet 4y ago
As if they weren't already doing that anyway?
- jmugan 4y ago
  Sure, but with every new hoop and restriction we tilt the scales further.
- diob 4y ago
  Yeah, reminds me of how they fight against raising minimum wage saying robots are going to take jobs, but where are we now? There still aren't enough workers, and turns out robots are hard.
  - spullara 4y ago
    McDonalds went from 400k employees in 2010 to 200k employees just a few years later.

baby 4y ago

It's interesting how many people in the comments are against more transparency. It's almost like they have something to lose from this bill.

radicaldreamer 4y ago
There's a sense that pay transparency will increase competition for lucrative roles and decrease overall comp (but perhaps increase average comp). A lot of people think they have it good and it'll be worse when there's pay transparency (even though this is not true transparency, it's simply public pay bands for listed roles).
- tenpies 4y ago
  To put it simply: ignorance is bliss. Many people are underpaid, but are happy. Telling them they are underpaid and broadcasting it to the world is a great way to destroy that happiness. This becomes even worst when there are non-monetary benefits to a job (e.g. you highly value working outdoors, beautiful scenery, a fantastic commute).
  - int_19h 4y ago
    You don't want to go look up salary bands for the position that you already hold.
donw 4y ago
Perhaps. Laws usually do precisely the opposite of what their titles describe. The PATRIOT act was quite possibly the most unpatriotic thing Congress could have done. The Inflation Reduction Act will increase inflation. I wouldn't be surprised if I read this law and found that it actually criminalized sharing your salary. Moreover, the devil is always in the details. Who is exempted? Does this cover total compensation, or just salary? How much burden does this place on smaller employers? More often than not, regulation like this is a tool for large businesses to strangle startups in the crib with compliance costs.
- 4y ago

eric4smith 4y ago

In my opinion this will negate the negotiation prowess of savvy employees. A big reason for salary disparities in the same positions is that some people simply negotiate better. It also does not account for more experienced candidates. I guess it could push people towards similar salaries over time in the same position. That’s why it smells faintly like socialism.

whatarethembits 4y ago
This is a good thing. Your pay shouldn’t depend on how good you were at negotiating on interview day. People with a lesser focus on social engineering don’t deserve lower pay for same work.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  To the extent that negotiation is a skill that will used productively on the job, it seems like rewarding it is appropriate. I assume you'd rather hire a head of sales who was good at negotiating than one who was terrible at it.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  Negotiation doesn't work without substance. You need to be desirable in the first place and be one of the handful of people that can make a huge difference to a company.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
How does requiring publicized pay ranges on job listings prevent negotiation?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

zephrx1111 4y ago

My naive 2 cents: 1. Knowing others salary is not a right 2. Employer should have the option to be transparent or not. You can incentivize it, but better not force it.

presentation 4y ago
This law doesn't result in 1), and 2) is the status quo, where practically no employer ever chooses to be transparent—the typical worker is the loser here.

maerF0x0 4y ago

> “each combination of race, ethnicity, and sex.” Leaving out "hours worked" or "Value provided" is going to create a race to the the bottom. If my salary is now capped by my peers then I may as well instead work less / less hard. (or, i suppose, only work at companies where everyone is a workaholic)

Spivak 4y ago
You should, I maybe work 25 hours a week and and the only people in the company that make more than me are directors and C levels. And everyone on my team makes the same. Work life balance is important and working 20 or 80 hours won’t get you more pay, only more responsibility. I have one workaholic team member and we literally force him to take days off. Your taking the pessimistic view, your salary is now floored by the highest quality most value producing person the company actually wants. If that floor is low then they clearly don’t want any rockstars on the team so kick your feet up and relax. And if the floor is high you found your group of live to workers.
- maerF0x0 4y ago
  I would rather work 50 hours per week and make a lot more now than have an "easy" WLB. Right now I need money, but the rules setup make it super tough (this plus progressive taxation that doesn't care how much money you average across life, just this year-- eg you could earn $1M in one year and nothing for 19 and still pay very high taxes while others earn $50k over 20 and they get an attractive rate).
lumost 4y ago
> Leaving out "hours worked" or "Value provided" is going to create a race to the the bottom. If my salary is now capped by my peers then I may as well instead work less / less hard. For the vast majority of employees, this was always the case. For my entire career the only way to get a raise commensurate with your value was to switch companies. After 6x job changes over 8 years + a 4 year stretch at the latest firm I've increased my compensation by ~10x. The most any manager was able to get me for a raise in 1 year was ~10%, and that was in a year that the standard tech salary went up by 20%.

omginternets 4y ago

Are these salary ranges to be announced when hiring or post hoc? In the former case, it seems like this would effectively cap salaries to the announced range. I’m generally quite amenable to the idea that American workers are not sufficiently protected, but I don’t understand how this doesn’t remove negotiating power, at least in the upper quartile of employees at a given firm. Edit: confused by the downvote. Maybe point out what I’m missing?

halffaday 4y ago

Employers will just create superfluous titles so they don’t have to price-match. My own opinion is that wages are completely unfair and never can be. Some people produce value several times their wage but it isn’t socially acceptable to pay someone with an important-sounding title minimum wage because of mediocre personal performance. It’s always safer to overpay your dead weight and underpay high-performers.

LatteLazy 4y ago

I don't know why they don't just go the whole hog and require full disclosure, at least internally. For many companies, for some of the groups listed, this will defacto be the case (if you're the only Chinese Woman at your 100 person company, your salary is now public record). Doing this would enable people to negotiate more effectively, require management to actually justify their decisions and has been shown to reduce actual pay gaps where they occur. Maybe that's too far too fast? But it is where we should be aiming.

Mandatum 4y ago

I guess leadership's moving to Texas..