Everybody Should Know What a Job Pays

Everybody Should Know What a Job PaysEverybody Should Know What a Job Pays

By V. James DeSimone

On September 27, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill (SB) 1162, which will require nearly 200,000 California companies with 15 or more employees to disclose pay ranges starting next year. What does it mean for job seekers? Besides providing them with critical information before they pursue a job opportunity, it gives potential employees some assurance that they will not face pay discrimination because of their age, race, ethnicity, gender or other characteristic. When pay ranges are disclosed, it informs job seekers where to focus their efforts and provides confidence that they will be paid as much as any other applicant for that same job. 

Even though the Equal Pay Act became U.S. law more than 50 years ago, pay disparities have been an ongoing blight on the American workplace. Pay disclosure laws could finally eliminate this blight. Such laws provide a host of important benefits, helping employers think through the value of the jobs they post while providing realistic expectations to those in the job market. Ultimately, requiring transparency of pay ranges could finally bring pay equity to the workplace where prior efforts have failed. It has been a long time coming. 

It’s a well-known fact that women earn a lot less than men. For the year 2021 it was about 83% of what their male colleagues made, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As alarming as that sounds, it’s nothing compared to how Black and Latino women have fared. The 2022 Equal Pay Day for Black women was September 21, meaning they had to work an extra 263 days to earn what White men earned in 2021.

The causes and reasons for pay disparities have been studied and documented at length. In some companies, women have been undervalued, relegated to subservient roles, and denied status in the workplace. Oftentimes, pay disparities are due to overt discrimination. And laws mandating equal pay – on the books in every state, as well as at the national level – will keep failing to close the gap as long as attitudes are unchanged and legal remedies are anemic. 

But greater pay transparency could be the cure to address some of these failures. It isn’t rocket science, and it doesn’t require complicated economic calculations. If every company were to simply post the pay range for the jobs they sought to fill, the gap would actually begin to narrow. Laws to this effect have already been implemented, and data shows that the gender gap can move in the direction of closure as a result. According to the National Women’s Law Center, “Revealing a position’s salary range is an important negotiation prompt and provides some brake on pay discrimination in initial offers.”

Colorado adopted the first such law in 2021, requiring employers to include pay ranges in job postings. Early research shows that the law actually boosted labor force participation by 1.5%. In other words, Colorado employers had an easier time filling jobs because applicants felt better about applying for positions where the pay range was disclosed. This is no surprise given that 98% of all workers believe that employers should disclose salary information in job listings and more than half would refuse to even apply for a job if the salary range is not disclosed, according to a recent survey

With a growing number of states enacting pay range disclosure laws, the results should be significant. In its letter supporting SB 1162, California’s pay range disclosure law, CELA and other advocacy groups stated as follows: “Research shows that when job applicants are clearly informed about the context for negotiations, including the salary range, women are more willing to negotiate, more successful in negotiating, and the gender wage gap narrows.”

All workers could be impacted by these laws. For multistate employers, we can expect to see pay ranges posted for all positions, regardless of where the worker resides. In addition, under SB 1162 employers will not only have to disclose pay ranges for new hires, but also for current employees who request the pay range for their own position. Armed with more pay information for the same or similar roles, this new law could provide current employees with a legitimate basis for negotiating higher pay for themselves.

Ultimately, these pay transparency laws should be a game-changer for closing wage gaps within companies. This is good for workers and good for employers – when employees know they are being treated fairly, morale and productivity rises, which are key factors in retaining employees who do a good job.

About V. James DeSimone

Civil rights attorney V. James DeSimone, of V. James DeSimone Law of Marina del Rey, has dedicated his 36-year law career to providing vigorous and ethical representation to achieve justice for those whose civil and constitutional rights are violated. His team represents individuals and families in employment, police misconduct, school abuse, and personal injury cases. You can find out more about their work at www.vjamesdesimonelaw.com

We’ve Finally Reached 2016 African American Women’s Equal Pay Day

We've Finally Reached 2016 African American Women’s Equal Pay DayWe've Finally Reached 2016 African American Women’s Equal Pay Day

Harriet Tubman portrait

Today we commemorate “African American Women’s Equal Pay Day,” the day in the year when African American women’s wages finally catch up to what men earned last year.  It is important to note that African American Women’s Equal Pay Day comes nearly four months after “Women’s Equal Pay Day,” which included wages of women of all races, and was marked on April 12th of this year.  The four-month lag signifies the nearly 20-cent wider wage gap African American women face when compared to women of all races.  So, while the average wage gap for all women in the United States is 79 cents for every dollar a man makes, African American women’s wages are at just 60.5 cents on the dollar.  African American lesbian couples, who doubly experience the high wage gap (plus discrimination based on sexual orientation), have triple the poverty rate of white lesbian couples.

Eliminating the racial gender wage gap would provide concrete economic benefits to African American women.  To give a concrete example, women could buy nearly three years of food for their families or pay rent for nearly two years with those additional wages.  Given that so many African American women and their families are struggling to make ends meet, receiving equal pay would make a life-changing difference.

Last year, California passed one of the strongest equal pay laws in the country, the California Fair Pay Act of 2015, which strengthened protection for workers who discuss or ask about their wages and the wages of others.  It also protects women who challenge gender based pay differences in jobs that are “substantially similar” to theirs.  For example, a female housekeeper who is being paid less than a male janitor could remedy the pay difference since the jobs are so similar and wage inequality would likely be unjustified.  The California Labor Commissioner is charged with enforcing the California Fair Pay Act.

This year, California State Senator Hall has introduced SB 1063, the Wage Equality Act of 2016, which would add race and ethnicity to California’s strong Fair Pay Act.  Under SB 1063, California employers would be prohibited from paying workers less for substantially similar work based on race or ethnicity.  An African American woman thus might have a claim that she is being paid less based not only on sex, but on race as well.  With SB 1063, she would be able to more effectively address racial wage inequality.

Certain cities already are specifically addressing wage inequality by sex, race and ethnicity.  For example, in San Francisco, city contractors will have to disclose data on what they pay their workers, broken down by both sex and race, to the City.  California state contractors may also be required to submit similar pay data reports under another bill that should reach the governor’s desk for approval.  And the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission intends to revise its Employer Information Report (EEO-1) data collection to include salary information based on ethnicity, race, and sex.

Our current laws against sex and race discrimination have proven inadequate to end race- and sex-based unequal pay since the pay gap remains depressingly large more than fifty years after passage of federal civil rights laws in these areas. Pay disclosure rules are an important step towards closing the pay gap for women and women of color in particular. They force employers to self-audit and identify unjustified pay disparities.  In the event they do not correct the disparities, disclosure enable government agencies to conduct targeted enforcement of equal pay laws.

It will reportedly be more than a decade before the first African American woman (Harriet Tubman) graces the face of U.S. currency.  With these new laws there is hope that before the Tubmans arrive, African American women will already be receiving the full value of those $20 bills and not just 60 percent.

The Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center together with the California Women’s Law Center and Equal Rights Advocates make up the California Fair Pay Collaborative dedicated to engaging and informing Californians about fair pay issues.

 

 

 

About Elizabeth Kristen

Elizabeth Kristen is the Director of the Gender Equity & LGBT Rights Program and a senior staff attorney at Legal Aid at Work.  Ms. Kristen began her public interest career as a Skadden Fellow at Legal Aid.  Ms. Kristen graduated from University of California at Berkeley School of Law in 2001 and served as a law clerk to the Honorable James R. Browning on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.  In 2012-13, she served as a Harvard law School Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow.  She has been a lecturer at Berkeley Law School since 2008. Legal Aid at Work together with the California Women’s Law Center and Equal Rights Advocates make up the California Fair Pay Collaborative dedicated to engaging and informing Californians about fair pay issues.