Given that TheWorkNumber exists (a service that does the opposite; allowing prospective employers to view your salary history as reported by your previous emplo

Given that TheWorkNumber exists (a service that does the opposite; allowing prospective employers to view your salary history as reported by your previous employers), this is a good counterbalance in negotiating power for workers. If you've been very underpaid, it'll be a lot harder for your next employer to offer you a 10% raise if you know the bottom end of their advertised range would be a 60% raise. I think the commenters here focus too much on themselves and people like them. This law was not written for SWEs with a market value of $120k/year who are being paid $80k/year. 0-60th percentile income workers are getting absolutely hosed and need every bit of negotiating power that they can get. Our working and hiring culture is very weird and favors employers. Anyone can be fired at any time for (almost) any reason, so your ability to pay rent and put food in your mouth depends upon your ability to find another job. When that process involves several dozen or hundred job applications, long hiring timelines, multiple interviews across days, weeks, and months, >60% rates of ghosting at every step, and exploding offers, lower income workers are often forced to accept the first offer they get regardless of how much lower it is than their true market rate. This wage transparency policy helps low-wage workers avoid entering the long hiring pipeline for jobs that pay abysmal wages. It is a strong net-positive for these workers who need it most.