By Saswat Pattanayak
Starting November 1, most New York City employers must list the salary range on all posted job ads, promotions and transfer opportunities.
This new law makes NYC the largest municipality in the U.S. to enforce pay transparency for both external and internal job advertisements. It was necessitated following the acknowledgement in existing pattern of pay inequality between men and women. According to the state comptroller’s office, “women in New York dropped from earning 89 cents on the dollar earned by men in 2015 to 86 cents on the dollar in 2019”. According to reports, during that time, the inflation-adjusted gap between men’s and women’s median salaries in New York increased from $6,431 to $8,821.
As per the New York City Council’s analysis of pay differences in the NYC municipal workforce, nearly 60% of over 300,000 dedicated workforce comprise of women, among whom more than half are Black and brown women. Compared with white employees within the “some civil service title”, Black or African American employees make $0.989 on the dollar, Hispanic or Latino employees make $0.990 on the dollar, and Asian workers make $0.992 on the dollar.
However, when it comes to Non-Adjusted Pay Gap, occupational segregation—the over- or under-representation of certain demographic categories of individuals in certain occupations— remains a driving force of pay inequity across the NYC municipal workforce.
Female employees on average make $.73 to every dollar male employees make. Black employees make $.71 to every dollar white employees make, Hispanic or Latino employees make $.75 to every dollar white employees make, and Asian employees make $.85 to every dollar white employees make.
To possibly address some of the concerns stated above, experts believe the new law is a welcome step. The law states – Starting November 1, 2022, employers advertising jobs in New York City must include a good faith salary range for every job, promotion, and transfer opportunity advertised.
According to the Salary Transparency Factsheet –
“All employers that have four or more employees or one or more domestic workers are covered by the NYCHRL, including this new provision of the law. As with other provisions of the NYCHRL, owners and individual employers count towards the four employees. The four employees do not need to work in the same location, and they do not need to all work in New York City. As long as one of the employees works in New York City, the workplace is covered.
Employment Agencies are also covered by the new law, regardless of their size. As such, employment agencies must ensure that any job listings they promote or seek to fill comply with the new salary transparency requirements.”
References –
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/cchr/downloads/pdf/publications/Salary-Transparency-Factsheet.pdf