Experts told The Post that New York City’s Payroll Transparency Act that takes effect next month is likely to increase workers’ demands nationwide for higher wages.
Starting November 1, certain New York City employers will be required to include minimum and maximum wages on every job listing — from $15 an hour for dishwashing to seven-figure technical and financial positions.
The law is meant to help job seekers avoid applying for jobs that pay too little and help narrow gender and ethnic pay gaps — but its biggest impact will result in many “difficult” conversations between bosses and current employees, according to Eli Friedberg, partner at the Labor Law Office Littler Mendelson.
“When an existing employee sees a new salary posted and is at the lower end of the range, this will raise some uncomfortable questions,” Friedberg told The Post. “This will have a tangible result in inflated wages for existing employees.”
while the The law applies to the five boroughs onlyExperts say it will affect the entire country because employers want to be open to hiring remote workers who live in the city. This means that all conceivable jobs performed in New York City will soon include salary ranges.
Colorado, Nevada and Connecticut also passed salary range laws in 2021 — and states including California and Washington are set to implement similar measures in the coming months, raising the possibility that salary ranges will become nationally standard.
Some companies, including real estate listings site Zillow, have already started publishing salary ranges online. One of Zillow’s typical listings for a Software Testing Engineer reads: “In Colorado, Connecticut, Nevada, and New York City, the standard base salary range for this role is $98,600.00 – $157,400.00 annually.”
Remote workers who live in cheaper countries May ask for higher salaries It’s when they see what colleagues are doing in the more expensive coastal towns, Brian Krupp, managing director of consultancy Accenture, told The Post.
For example, a banker in Charlotte, North Carolina, could request a raise after seeing the number of new hires on Wall Street, Krupp said.
The law was originally scheduled to go into effect in May, but has been pushed back to November amid a downturn from business groups such as the Partnership for New York City. Cathy Wild, CEO and group president, told The Post she was happy with the delay in implementing the law, but said she still had concerns about harming small businesses.
A white-collar insurance worker in her 20s told The Post she supports the new law, saying she would likely quit her job if her company drew up a listing for a similar role with a higher salary range than hers.
“If I [found out I] “I was being paid so little, I would be angry and maybe leave,” said the worker, who asked not to be identified.
Many workers have taken advantage of higher wages and near-record low unemployment to get bigger salaries by changing jobs – a trend that has been It was called “The Great Resignation”. The surge in new hires has paved the way for a wave of employees for longer periods demanding better pay, according to Krupp, a human resources expert.
“Companies over the past year have increased the wages of their new employees in order to attract them into the labor market – but very little has been done by increasing the salaries of their existing employees,” Krupp said.
He added that the only reason existing employees who earn less money than new employees aren’t asking for more money is because they’ve started “actively looking for a new job at another company”.
Banking industry sources said they are already trying to negotiate salaries by talking to friends at rival banks and by looking at data from H1-B visas, which require companies to disclose how much they pay to certain foreign workers residing in the US.
“Smart people really use that as a negotiating technique,” one banker told The Post.
The bill is expected to have less impact on hourly workers in industries such as retail and food service, according to Friedberg, because there is less room for hourly wage maneuverability in the industry.
“It definitely affects white collar work more than retail and hospitality jobs,” Friedberg said. “Wages in the fast food sector tend to be fairly contained, from $15 to $22 an hour, let’s say … there wouldn’t be much of a difference.”
However, Krupp argued that all workers would benefit from knowing how much a potential job could pay before applying.
Employers who fail to publish payrolls will not be fined if they add domains within 30 days of being warned that they are non-compliant. If they fail to add the domain or raise repeated violations, they could face fines of up to $250,000 per violation.