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NYC Poised to Ban Firms From Asking Job Candidates About Pay (bloomberg.com)
In a vote this week, the New York City approved legislation that will ban employers from asking job applicants about what they make in their current or past job and could have far-reaching consequences beyond the city as employers try to standardize their practices. From a report: "This bill will go a long way in addressing wage disparities women -- and particularly women of color -- face," said Public Advocate Letitia James, who sponsored the measure. White women in New York earn on average 84 percent of what white men earn, while Asian women earn 63 percent, black women earn 55 percent and Hispanic women just 46 percent, according to a report from the advocate's office, based on U.S. Census data. Asking about pay in a job interview hurts women who may start from a lower level than male candidates -- an effect that compounds over time. "It perpetuates discrimination," James said. "And it has an effect on their pensions as well."
While I do agree that questioning pay should be banned, I really wish they would stop with the "Women get paid less than men" myth. Continuing to use it is fake news.
But if everyone lies, doing so just keeps you at relative par- the problems with it still exist.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Just because you don't know what someone made in their previous job doesn't mean that they'll be offered more.
There is no need for government to insert itself into a market driven process during a salary negotion between a potential employer and employee. The employee is free to lie about past salaries (no employer will ever release this information). This is yet another example of government overreach and I'm pretty sure the Trump team will crush this under their heel once they hear about it.
I'm working at a business with low pay--where the average for a programmer is $96k here, programmers make $74k. The same is true of most IT staff, running a good 20%-30% short of the industry median.
We're also fairly diversified and have chicks and people from all over the world in our staff, and have had folks who speak Russian or obscure Indian dialects as a primary language in prominent technical positions. They're also poorly-paid, although near as I can tell we all have about the same salary.
It seems like a form of posturing: we don't want to pay salaries, so we create a perception of ... something. We're a good place to work because of something something benefits diversity open-door-policy.
Are these studies by industry, region, experience, and business? Do we say that black women earn 55% as much as white men, or do we say that black women at business X in job Y earn 55% as much as white men in business X at job Y? What happens if business X mostly hires white men for job Y, and business X' hires a higher proportion of black and asian women for job Y but also pays like shit even if you're a white man?
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What about the First Amendment?
There's no reason why everybody would have to the lie by the same percentage.
I've never understood why someone's current salary is important to an employer. A job pays what the job is worth and the skill set the candidate brings to the table. It should not pay based on what someone is currently making as there is no relationship.
If so, then the bias will be reintroduced, unless the applicants do their homework ahead of time an ask for the higher salary.
So what? Pay negotiations still want to happen. "I can't ask you what you make now. Ok, next question: Is our offer of $100k acceptable? No? What would you consider an acceptable offer?"
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
"Asking about pay in a job interview hurts women who may start from a lower level than male candidates -- an effect that compounds over time."
Really?
You're telling me WOMEN have never heard of 'lying'?
-Styopa
So you both lie by 5K- you might be better off percentage wise, but the gap is still the same. And you're assuming everyone realizes they need to do this.
I don't know if this action is the right answer, but lying about your wage isn't sufficient (and could be used as grounds for an at fault firing later).
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
"...Asian women earn 63 percent, black women earn 55 percent and Hispanic women just 46 percent."
Reading this, it seems that racial discrimination is a larger problem than gender discrimination.
Unfortunately, it's no easier to hide skin color than it is gender. Regardless, all forms of discrimination should end.
Sorry - I've only ever worked for private companies in the tech industry for the past twenty years. What is this "pension" you speak of?
Big deal.
Get back to me with numbers based on Group X makes Y% of Group Z for the same job description and experience level and then we can start to worry about corrective measures.
"It perpetuates discrimination," James said. "And it has an effect on their pensions as well."
Now I know they're blowing smoke up my ass. Pensions? What pensions? I've heard of this mythical beast. I've never seen it. Boomers got pensions. I'm Gen-X. The pensions were gone, gone gone by the time I entered the workforce.
In my 3rd world country, asking for current pay is forbidden.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
No, but you can ask what the pay is, XORed with a randomly-generated number known only to the answerer.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I'm sorry, but there's an entire political ideology that believes that if it makes gas cheap, CO2's properties magically change, so I'm not interested in those who weight their subjective ideologies higher than objective reality.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Pensions?
Duh.
E.g. If I'm willing to pay $80k for the position, but I know you make $60k and I offer $70k you will probably take it as it's an increase for you and I pocket the $10k difference because you have 0 way of knowing how much I'm willing to pay to start with.
That's why ALL interviewers ask this question EVERYWHERE and will not proceed with interviews without this information unless prohibited by law.
Pass a law that requires all employers to cut all white men's pay by 50%, white women's by 40%, asian women's by 30%, etc, so all groups on average make exactly the same money. Problem solved, full equality for all! Only racist misogynists could possibly disapprove.
Because if you lie and the lie ever gets found out it gives them an easy excuse to fire you.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
The only reason for an interviewer to ask a question about a person's previous salary is if they are trying to indirectly ascertain how satisfied that person is with the salary that they were making.
If you answer plainly, then you communicate to the interviewer that you are or were satisfied with the salary, and if an interviewer is asking so that they can find the least expensive employee to hire, any increase over the amount you tell them is liable to be quite small.
Trying to dodge the question by telling the employer how much you want to make when they've specifically asked how much you were making communicates to the interviewer that you are dissatisfied with your previous pay and any figure that you do give them is actually somewhat more than what you are actually willing to work for.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If this law, enjoins me as a private individual from saying the words "What did you make at your last job?" then it is a violation of my right to free speech. But because the magic word "employer" gets tacked on to me, it's suddenly OK to deny me the right to say those same words to another adult? Communism FTW!
Or, just say: I only made such-and-such amount where I worked before, but for this new job I want this-and-that. Not lying, and you can straighten out any gap in one go.
Just do a good job, and there's no incentive to fire you.
If you answer plainly, you were probably satisfied with the amount. If you try and dodge the question, you were probably not satisfied with the amount.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Interesting point. HR due diligence usually involves a "background check", which is a euphemism for gathering data which is loosely related or sometimes unrelated to job requirements. Asking for a W-2 costs nothing so background checking services do it routinely.
I had a situation where I was applying for a job while self-employed. For complicated reasons, supplying a W-2 was not an option. In the end, the employer and I both agreed that my current income had nothing to do with the price of tea in China, so they made their offer based on what they were willing to pay. The offer made sense, so I accepted it. Alternatively, if they really wanted to use my current income as the baseline for salary negotiation, there was always the possibility that I would demand a salary commensurate with my best year as a self-employed consultant, or at least the average, at which point the deal falls apart.
I'm not a fan of lying about any part of the job application process. It can lead to all sorts of trouble and I have no reason to do it. So I tell the truth and let the process play out. Unfortunately, not everyone plays by these rules. I know of several people with various issues that would never pass a routine background check, and yet they end up working at some of the largest employers in America! If I use LinkedIn to look up people that I know, sometimes I find fake degrees, inflated job titles, fictional jobs at real companies, and fictional jobs at fictional companies. At first i thought it was hilarious, until I realized that honest job seekers are competing against these people. Even worse, I considered the "verifiability" of my own situation and found some problems. Long after my departure, several of my former employers have merged, downsized, sold, relocated, outsourced, or discontinued their operations. Any document that I produce could easily be drafted in Word or Photoshop -- nobody is in a position to prove or disprove anything. If I provide references, they could just as easily be friends with a script.
Thanks to modern technology, it is now easier to "verify" a fake background than a real one!
Climate change is not a controversial subject, it's fact.
Because if you lie and the lie ever gets found out it gives them an easy excuse to fire you.
German law: If an employer asks a question that they are legally not allowed to ask, then an employee or prospective employee has the right to lie, and this can not in any way held against them. Most common example is asking a woman "are you pregnant". If she is pregnant, she can completely legally say "Yes" (no job), "You are not allowed to ask this question" (no job), or "No" (gets the job, takes maternity leave five months later).
It doesn't actually make any sense to dictate "you can't ask this question" unless you also say "lying is no excuse for firing someone".
Actually, the interesting thing is that a decent amount of what's left of the gap once you've properly controlled for all factors can be explained by, well, the long-known problem that women just don't ask. But hey, let's keep on not talking about how girls being socialized to suck at aggression is a problem--not just in being aggressive, but in using it properly.
If you want to get rid of the gap, you might well be better off having any question of what wage you're currently making, have made in the past, and want left off the table until it is time to settle pay--unless the employer wants to give what the minimum assured wage or the like is, leave it as something not talked about until the decision has been made to hire, and even then it might be best to require the employer make the opening move.
It's an interview... they aren't interested in you at all yet... they are interested only in getting the open position filled, and finding the most suitable candidate. Part of that suitability is wage expectation, and if they choose to do it by asking you what you made on your last job, they are finding out only if they will be able to take advantage of you by underpaying you.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'