ALBANY, N.Y. (1010 WINS) — Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday signed legislation requiring employers in New York state to define salary ranges for all advertised jobs and promotions.
Hochul called the measure "historic," saying it will "create the best protections" for workers and "usher in a new era of fairness and transparency for New York's workforce and will be a critical tool in our efforts to end pervasive pay gaps for women and people of color."
The state law follows the implementation of a similar measure in New York City in October.
Seher Khawaja, senior attorney for economic empowerment at Legal Momentum whose organization helped draft the New York City law, said salary transparency "gives existing employees and workers information to better gauge how positions within their workplace are valued and whether they’re being paid fairly."
It also gives employers a way to avoid liability.
"It puts their feet to the fire to think about how they’re setting pay and to avoid discriminatory practices that were working their way in previously," Khawaja said.
In 2021, the median pay for full-time women workers was about 83% of men’s pay, according to federal data, and women make less than their male counterparts in nearly all fields. For women of color, the numbers are even worse.
A report by the National Partnership for Women and Families found that Black women make 64 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. For Latina women, it’s 54 cents and for Native American women, it’s just 51 cents.
The new wave of legislation marks a shift in who bears the onus for making salaries transparent, with more employers now being held responsible for creating an open work environment instead of leaving it to employees to figure out how their pay compares to their coworkers and whether to ask for fair compensation, according to Andrea Johnson, director of state policy at the National Women’s Law Center.
Colorado was the first to adopt a salary transparency law in 2019, followed by California, Maryland, Nevada, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Washington, as well as cities like Cincinnati and Toledo, Ohio.
In a statement Wednesday, Khawaja said that the state "delivered on its promise to advance pay equity for women and people of color, extending vital protections across the state and leading a national movement to dismantle our harmful culture of pay secrecy."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Related
Related
Related
