Public advocate introduces bill to ban employers from asking about prior salaries
In an effort to help close the gender pay disparity in New York City, Public Advocate Letitia James will introduce legislation that would ban employers from asking prospective hires about their pay history.
James made the announcement on Wednesday, a week after Massachusetts became the first state in the country to enact a similar law.
The public advocate’s proposal, like the legislation in the Bay State, would add to laws already on the books in most every state prohibiting gender discrimination in setting rates of pay. But the new measures address what some economists see as a more subtle and intractable cause of the continuing pay gap between men and women — that pay rates for women at the beginning of their careers tend to be lower than men’s, and the gap follows them throughout their lives.
A recently released survey conducted by Glassdoorfound that 68 percent of women accepted the first salary offer they received without negotiating it, compared to 52 percent of men. And a significant body of research shows women are less likely to negotiate higher salaries than men.
Areport by the American Association of University Women found that in 2014, “U.S. women working full time, year-round were paid just 79 percent of U.S. men’s median earnings — a gap of 21 percent.”
The same study found that in New York, the gap is narrower — women, on average, make 87 percent of what men make.
The legislation, which is being co-sponsored by Councilwomen Elizabeth Crowley, Laurie Cumbo and Helen Rosenthal, comes several months after James’s office issued a report outlining pay disparities between men and women and different races.
In her report, James found that women who work in municipal government make, on average, 18 percent less than their male counterparts, while women working in the private sector in New York City earn 9 percent less than what their male counterparts earn.
James’s report also found the gaps were exacerbated for women of color, with Asian, African-American and Hispanic women earning 37 percent less, 45 percent less and 54 percent less than white men in similar jobs, respectively.
A POLITICO New York analysis of city payroll records from 2015 found that among the 100 highest grossing earners in the city’s payroll (excluding the NYPD and district attorneys’ offices), 24 were women.
Of the 100 highest-salaried positions on the city’s payroll in fiscal year 2015, 38 were held by women.
The jobs and agencies where city employees typically earn the most overtime are far less likely to employ women, the payroll records show.
Jameshad recommendedin April that Mayor Bill de Blasio issue an executive order barring city agencies from asking about prospective employees’ previous salary information, and suggested city agencies make information about employees’ wages by gender and job title publicly available.
A spokesperson for James’s office said similar bills have been introduced in state legislatures in New York, California and Colorado, but none has yet passed.