Coming soon to a job near you: Knowing what it pays:
You wouldn't rent an apartment or even buy a pair of jeans online without knowing the price. Soon, many Americans won't search for a job without knowing what it pays, either.
A series of local and state laws, both newly adopted and soon to be in effect, will force companies to divulge what a job pays when posting an open position. Besides being common sense, the intent of these laws is to shrink the persistent wage gap that divides white men from women and people of color. Lowering the pay gap would be an important step forward for equality in the US, affecting everything from Americans' quality of life to how they see themselves. But while pay transparency is a much-needed improvement, a lot more is needed to truly create balance for all Americans.
In the US, women and people of color get paid less than white men, regardless of job or experience. Pay gaps often begin at the start of careers, then compound over a lifetime as women and people of color are less likely to get raises. A variety of other factors contribute to the gap as well, like the motherhood penalty, wherein women who take time off paid work to care for kids are paid nearly 40 percent less than those who don't. There's occupational segregation, in which jobs that are filled predominantly by women or people of color, like home health aides or food service workers, are paid less. (The pay and prestige of computer science, for example, rose only as more men entered the field.) Women and people of color are also seriously underrepresented in leadership positions, which are paid the most. In sum, that means the median hourly wage for women is 86 cents per hour for every dollar a man makes. Black women make 68 cents. There's been little progress on closing the pay gap in the last three decades.
[...] "Transparency is one of the leading tools we've identified for closing the wage gap," Andrea Johnson, director of state policy at the National Women's Law Center, told Recode. "It is absolutely crucial for both increasing worker power and employer accountability."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Monday October 24 2022, @07:51PM (3 children)
Good. While pay transparency is only the first step toward fair wages, it seems to be all but vital.
We've decided in this country to worship the god of a free market (now fortified with regulatory capture and extensive oligarchies!) above all else.
And a free market can only price things even remotely accurately if everyone involved is well informed. Making sure everyone at least has access to the information they need to be well informed is vital.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2022, @12:05AM
It's almost as if the ones praising the virtues of the free market are the ones most actively trying to bias it. Huh?
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Tuesday October 25 2022, @02:29AM (1 child)
What makes you think everyone wasn't already well informed? As others have noted, ads will just end up with bogus wage ranges that don't add any information because the potential employer pays differently based on context.
Doesn't make sense to complain about the free market model when it works well enough and the alleged fixes don't fix anything. But then, it didn't make sense to propose a fix that didn't fix anything.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday October 26 2022, @12:46AM
You're right - listing salary ranges for a position is almost worthless, unless they're very narrow.
Much better is listing the actual salaries of current employees, and the justification for their position within the range.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ataradov on Monday October 24 2022, @08:27PM (5 children)
Would it end up like the advertised hotel room price: $10 - $600 / night.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 24 2022, @08:46PM (4 children)
While this is possible (I saw a story stating that starting - zero experience - mail carriers are making $16 to $35 per hour...) it is still a form of transparency. Why is there such a disparity? Who is making that top of scale? Is it veterans, or women, people of color...
Wide ranges may make targets for further investigation.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday October 25 2022, @02:13AM (3 children)
Yeah, that's minimum compliance with a shit "transparency" rule.
Make it real transparency - anyone can look at the company website and see exactly how much everyone is being paid.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 25 2022, @02:30AM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 25 2022, @09:48AM (1 child)
Yeah, because that happens all the time in Scandinavia.
Declared income doesn't translate to unguarded easily fenced valuables lying around the house, often the opposite.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 25 2022, @02:36PM
First, it's just Norway. Second, they don't have the ridiculous problem yet with burglaries that the US has.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Barenflimski on Monday October 24 2022, @08:43PM (5 children)
In Colorado this is the law. All jobs now have a huge range of what you might get paid. It all depends on your prior skills, not on the job. Married, babies, family, school, friends in HR, what degree and from where you may have gotten it from all affect your final base pay.
It is the same old club, but instead of asking the HR or recruiters, you find out this information from the job ad, if there ever was one. It hasn't changed a thing. Every job has a 50k -> 100k range.
I don't think that folks that write these articles have any idea how this actually works. There is an algorithm taught in schools around the country, and pushed by the likes of PwC (Price Waterhouse Coopers) that almost every financial person copies/pastes and slightly edits before calling that the new "company wage policy."
This type of article only makes people think that there is actually some route for them to get significantly more pay and that there is some system that is in play to reduce that.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 24 2022, @09:00PM (3 children)
> Every job has a 50k -> 100k range.
That speeds things up considerably. If $150K isn't even in the range, don't waste my time.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 4, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday October 24 2022, @09:50PM (1 child)
Ah. that's too bad. I was about to propose you a job in the $151K - $200K range, but since you're not interested...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 24 2022, @11:47PM
The artifacts of uneditable content and little care for getting it right the first time are many...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Monday October 24 2022, @10:01PM
Yea, I could have worded that better.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by SomeRandomGeek on Monday October 24 2022, @09:19PM
I, for one, find this law completely absurd. Professional baseball players make a good example. Imagine applying this law to major league baseball. Wanted: Baseball player. Salary range ($570k - $43.3m.) What's that? Not all baseball players have the same job? Ok, let's be more specific about the job categories. It doesn't help much. Wanted: Relief Pitcher. Salary range($570k - $16m) Wanted: Catcher. Salary range($570k - $23.8m)
The law presumes that two people with the same job description are equally good at their job and provide the same value to their employer. But this is simply not true. Or maybe the law presumes that the company can't tell the difference between low performing and high performing employees. But this is also not true. Or at least not universally true. There are definitely jobs where performance matters and performance varies. And trying to force employers to ignore that is absurd.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday October 24 2022, @09:03PM (2 children)
Great, they have to tell what it pays.
Now can they start actually telling us what the job actually _IS_?!
Yea, the job lists 100 responsibilities in things that no single person could ever do, certainly not even to the extent they make it sound like.
Then the next one just goes on about how great some company is.
Then the next one just has a bunch of bullshit that someone obviously just copied from 1000 others that sound exactly the same. Fine for an assembly line worker, but not so fine when you know damn well the job is a unique technical position.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday October 24 2022, @10:02PM
They do say what it is, but you need the glossary. Here's an excerpt:
- Maintenance worker: janitor
- Delivery associate: Amazon driver
- Administrative assistant: secretary
- Sanitation engineer: trashman
- Home executive: housewise
- Guest services ambassador: greeter
- Eviction specialist: bouncer
and of course, everybody's favorite:
- In-between jobs: unemployed
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2022, @12:09AM
That's so first the first year (or as long as it takes for you to figure it out) they can be "disappointed" and "want to see more progress" while absolutely nobody else is doing anything remotely close to the absurd "expectations" (which are fake).
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday October 24 2022, @09:24PM
They don't need to give me the exact figure but they should at least state the range or give some kind of ballpark figure. I was under the impression this was already fairly common in the US and UK, less common apparently elsewhere judging from offers I get. It's very annoying to apply and then have some kind of interview and then get the low ball offer that makes you just want to stand up and leave. A complete waste of time for all involved.
That said I understand that they don't want to give out more information then they have to in the coming salary negotiation. That said if I somehow accepted a low ball offer and find out, cause you will find out eventually, you will probably be pissed and leave unless the boss ponies up the big $. So while they might have saved a penny or two short term in the long run it's probably counterproductive and will cost them if the person they just hired finds out, leaves and then tell all their friends and contacts what a piece of shit outfit you are and on top of that you are also cheap. The only place I guess this would work is if you are hiring desperate people that have no options.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Monday October 24 2022, @09:29PM (4 children)
Around '90 or '91 I took a job for Scientific Atlanta writing software for the Seawolf Submarine towed arrays. Besides being one of the worst places I've ever worked (got a Halloween memo that said anyone who dressed up would be fired on the spot) they had a rule that said anyone discussing their salary would be fired. But they had memos on the wall specifying job titles with pay ranges, with the range being maybe $5k. Anyone who knew my job title was foo knew I was making, say, $40-$45k, if my title was senior foo it was $42-$48k, and if it was bar $45-52k.
After 40 years in the industry a good 50% of my horror stories were from the 12 months I spent there (I was young and naive, felt like I had to stay at a job for a year to not look bad. I bailed on the 366th day).
Ahh, stories:
1) ADA. At the time DOD was all "We spent money on this, you'all gonna use this", didn't allow direct memory access, nor bit twiddling like AND, NOR, XOR. I write device drivers that require direct memory access and bit twiddling.
2) Cadre. "You'll love this editor, you'll master it in 30 minutes". Yes we did. Because it sucked, we were an Emacs and Vi shop and Cadre editing sucked ass.
3) Pseudo code reviews, where East Coast folks escaping winter outnumbered us (San Diego) 2-1. For 2 weeks.
3a) and argued document paragraph # 3.1.2 should be 3.1.1.5 ad naseum. As in, wording nor design doesn't change, numbering does
3a1) The East coast folks were in San Diego during the winter on my company's dime
4) Not allowed to test provided hardware. Found out a year later provided hardware didn't provide a major promised feature ("gee, nobody has used that yet"). I'd left a few month previous and heard about it from a former co-worker who's pants I was still trying to get into (never did, but her cat liked me). (The board was Sky Warrior DSP, the feature was chaining).
4a) Without promised feature system requirements couldn't be met
5) The naming standard of the day. Seemed like monthly we went from Foobar to FooBar to Foo_Bar, to fooBar to strFoo.
5a) This story is where I get my most mileage and I need to figure out how to monetize it. Hint: I bypassed Cadre and, had the DOD found out, would have cost Scientific Atlanta a ton of cash. Then again, I changed a 1 week task to a 1 hour task while management still thought it was a 1 week task. The 4 of us got to really like when management mandated a new standard, we just shot the shit for 39 hours, "fixed" it, and went home on time for the weekend.
In the comments tell me how I can monetize this story, cuz it needs to be told (hint, I've already told it if your google fu is good) and I could use the prescription drug money.
I just passed a drug test. My dealer has some explaining to do.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Snotnose on Monday October 24 2022, @09:34PM
Dang, forgot the most important part. Interviewing for the job I figured it to be 6 months from design, code, debug, done. I was there for 12 months and never wrote a single line of code, and never got to do anything but look at the package of the DSP card I was writing code for.
I just passed a drug test. My dealer has some explaining to do.
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday October 25 2022, @12:01AM
There was a reason for it. See, a byte might've had first bit attached to send the nuke while the second to cancel. Too smart kids tend to optimize the code by setting the byte to all ones first.
That's how my former boss wrote ADA compiler and DOD have been fearful ever since.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ChrisMaple on Tuesday October 25 2022, @01:00AM
ADA? Ada is a computer language. In the United States, ADA is most often understood to stand for "Americans with Disabilities Act."
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday October 26 2022, @02:23PM
Thanks.
I was about to post something like:
How about making it illegal for companies to forbid or punish employees for discussing how much they get paid and other compensation and who they had to sleep with.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 25 2022, @01:01AM
Post what everyone makes: that way, if you're a black woman with more experience and credentials than a white man and you're making less $, you'll know.
Make it real, not some white-wash, loop-holed legal circus.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---