There's a lot of skepticism in this thread but I will just say that the other laws like this have had a huge positive effect on tech job searching in my opinion.
Looking casually at jobs lately I would say that 80% of them have posted salary ranges. This has been enormously helpful in a) helping me avoid jobs with inflated titles but low pay and b) attracting me to jobs I might not otherwise consider because of very competitive pay.
Another worker-friendly thing that NY did recently was to crack down on companies' claims to ownership of intellectual property that employees create on their own time (the same kind of protection that California has):
> Effective immediately, Governor Hochul has signed a law invalidating any provision in an employment agreement that requires employees to assign to the employer any rights to an invention developed entirely on the employee's own time without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secrets.[1]
I think it’s better than nothing, but ultimately not helpful for job seekers working to learn how much a position will pay them.
I work in a very regulated organization where all pay rates are published with postings. [0]
But the ranges are $20-40k for each grade and it’s hard to tell what you will end up being offered and accepted.
I think it helps prevent some mismatches of people confusing $20k and $200k positions but I frequently see people with work history in the $30/hour range applying for very high pay jobs. I find it hard to accurately peg my market value.
When I worked in smaller orgs I would frequently see variability of 100-300% for the same job title. And even in really large orgs with big HR there might be a $100k pay band before bonuses.
So what do I do with a job posting that says $110-250k? If Im senior, do I apply and expect $250k not knowing if there’s a single person who is amazing making they amount? Or if Im junior do I ask for $110, knowing I could get more.
What I do is network to find what the actual pay is and negotiate around there. Or discuss with multiple offers.
Id like to see something like the IRS releasing more anonymized data from w2 for employers that will let you look up quartiles by employer, broken out by employee filing address.
This also has severe limitations but at least you can see how many employees they actually have and actually pay based on taxid. But self-reported pay data is so bad I don’t think it’s actually useful for stuff like “does this company I found on the internet actually hire people?” Unfortunately titles are so useless that I don’t think anything more than number of employees and distribution of their pay is better than what we have now.
The privacy implications are serious and need to be accounted for. But I think only releasing for orgs over 100 or something. Or only for publicly traded. Or only that receive public funds, etc etc
I have asked some HR people this question about ranges, and most of them tell me they expect to pay the midpoint of the range. That is, if you meet the qualifications, they’ll offer you the midpoint. However if you blow them away or got some competing offers, they will offer you the high end. And if you got very little experience, the low end. That’s the rule of thumb. It doesn’t matter if the range is as wide as 80k-400k, just assume the midpoint is the starting offer
> I work in a very regulated organization where all pay rates are published with postings.
> But the ranges are $20-40k for each grade and it’s hard to tell what you will end up being offered and accepted
Is it really that hard in fed land? I work for the state of California, and which has a similar level of regulation and similar posted ranges, but its pretty trivial most of the time to know exactly where you’d be set. I mean, its not 100% accurate, but this is right most of the time:
If you are apply from outside the system, you will be offered the exact bottom of the range and there will be no flexibility.
If you are inside the system, if its a lateral, you keep your pay. If its a higher range, you move up by the lesser of 5% or to the minimum of the new range. Also with no flexibility.
The circumstances with any flexibility are very limited, what you get is almost completely determined by how you got to the job.
> The privacy implications are serious and need to be accounted for.
Of by-employer actual pay distribution disclosure? Is that why public sector employers pay a hefty wage premium because their employees pay data is public on an individual level, which obviously has even greater concerns?
The big ranges is a logical consequence of such stupid rules. People are not commodities, and only in the most trivial of work can you a priori know what an individual brings to it. It's typical government thinking that makes no sense in the real world. So employers are stuck publishing an absurdly wide band that reflects the difference in what different people might bring to the position.
This is effectively populism, a simple and wrong solution to a much more complex problem.
> So what do I do with a job posting that says $110-250k? If Im senior, do I apply and expect $250k not knowing if there’s a single person who is amazing making they amount? Or if Im junior do I ask for $110, knowing I could get more.
You apply with the knowledge that you will earn at least $110k, and if you want more, you should apply to more employers so that you have the negotiating position to ask for more.
I have never worked in a job where you can give a reasonable pay band and routinely made 1.5-3x what other people with the same title did, before bonuses. This really only works for well-defined jobs in production, retail, and seems to bring little utility for the HN crowd.
I've previously commented [0] on how broken this implementation is. It's frustrating politicians don't see how easy it is to circumvent what the law seeks to achieve.
Given that TheWorkNumber exists (a service that does the opposite; allowing prospective employers to view your salary history as reported by your previous employers), this is a good counterbalance in negotiating power for workers. If you've been very underpaid, it'll be a lot harder for your next employer to offer you a 10% raise if you know the bottom end of their advertised range would be a 60% raise.
I think the commenters here focus too much on themselves and people like them. This law was not written for SWEs with a market value of $120k/year who are being paid $80k/year. 0-60th percentile income workers are getting absolutely hosed and need every bit of negotiating power that they can get.
Our working and hiring culture is very weird and favors employers. Anyone can be fired at any time for (almost) any reason, so your ability to pay rent and put food in your mouth depends upon your ability to find another job. When that process involves several dozen or hundred job applications, long hiring timelines, multiple interviews across days, weeks, and months, >60% rates of ghosting at every step, and exploding offers, lower income workers are often forced to accept the first offer they get regardless of how much lower it is than their true market rate. This wage transparency policy helps low-wage workers avoid entering the long hiring pipeline for jobs that pay abysmal wages.
It is a strong net-positive for these workers who need it most.
We just post the actual compensation, not a range, and we stick to it.
It’s worked pretty well, you discuss it in the first steps of the process to make sure they get that’s actually how it’s going to work and then you spend your time interviewing people who are OK with the comp.
If the candidate pool isn’t any good then change the comp. And sure if you want to recruit a hotshot candidate or something nothing is stopping you from taking an individualized approach with that person.
I think people tend to overestimate their ability to game the process. Why not just say what you want.
Agree, but it's not just about exploitation. Many people are weird about money and honesty around their skillset. I think it would be a good change, but I'm not sure the majority of people would like working like a pro sports team. In pro sports you know what everyone makes and relative skillsets are ranked and on display.
I wonder if this will result in remote job applications excluding candidates from New York, as we've seen with other states. Although once a critical mass of states start requiring this, that won't really be an option any more.
Companies generally use third party compensation benchmark tools like Radford, which are total garbage. They base comp off title, and these tools are stuck in the stone age (think 'programmer analyst' as a SWE). When recruiting and/or engineering decide to post a job, they need to consult HR, who don't know anything about tech hiring, so they'll just guess. This will result in a broad, inaccurate, or crappy range. This seems like a decent law for retail and lower skilled jobs, but I think it just creates confusion for tech/startups. Engineers/tech employees talk, and its evident in online forums, slack/discord groups, linkedin, etc. When I see people say they won't apply to a job w/o the band or will pass on the job if its low, I'd suggest you do your own research. See who the company employs. If they are hiring talent from companies known to pay big $$, the posted band is just a bureaucratic formality because nobody knows how to properly navigate it. Also, talk to recruiters - they know what people are getting paid.
The purpose of this law is salary transparency, not necessarily on salary equality across positions in the company.
It makes it so that applicants can see what all employers are offering up front, which incentivizes the employers to be more competitive on salary offer if they want applicants to choose to apply there.
Salary equality for equivalent positions within the company, as you're describing it, would require companies to publicly list what each of their existing employees are making, which is a completely different thing than what this law is requiring.
My megacorp operates in at least 3 states with these laws now, so all our postings include a pay band. The band is lower than practically every person's offer...
While I favor transparency, I don't think this is something that should be legislated / regulated. Mainly because the lack of such details in a job ad is a signal. And imho an important one. It gives insight into the org that's hiring. It also leaves the door open to negotiations.
Employment is nearly all cases is at will. Every interview stage ends with "Any questions?" There is definitely a time and place for government regulation. This is not one of them. It's too Nanny State-y.
I disagree. Almost no job postings in NY had a salary in 2020. That number is now close to 100%. Companies will not disclose salaries unless you whack them with a stick
1) This seems like a fairly decent bit of legislation for some standardized professions, particularly those that are often paid hourly, work in person and cannot be outsourced out of state, and in many cases are the most economically vulnerable. I'm thinking that it would be pretty decent for dishwashers, cashiers, gas station attendants, etc to know if a job is offering say $15-18 per hour or $20-25 per hour. But this seems horrendous for salaried remote knowledge workers, particularly those that have the ability to negotiate a better deal. And additionally, there will be unintended consequences of this legislation, such as some employers not wanting to deal with New York employees.
2) If the goal of this legislation is to prevent exploitation, it seems that requiring a salary floor would be important, but requiring a salary ceiling would be a negative part of this legislation as it makes it a lot tougher to allow employees to have the room to negotiate.
My query with this sort of thing is always that will this do any more than remove the low and high end people for roles in companies, and maybe the people who want the highs will go to somewhere where they can be paid with more variability.
High and low end people don't have to be hired for the advertised position. I believe the company can still say "yeah, you're not this level, but we're interested in you for position X instead" which may be outside of the advertised range.
Also, what happens if both parties agree to a salary outside of the bound during the interview. Is the employer bound by that number? I am guessing there is no mechanism that would enforce it.
I’ve recently noticed some of the special YC company hiring ads on here advertising ranges like 10k-1M for engineering positions. Is this New York law a major cause for such listings?
I'd imagine this would get abused in unfortunately amusing ways.
Start out as:
"Senior XYZ-Division Backend Software Developer" at ZYX Corp
Then as you start touching more and more of the database, you get a new title to become the:
"Senior XYZ-Division Backend Database Software Engineer" at ZYX Corp
At which point you get bored and switch departments to become the:
"Senior CBA-Division Backend Performance Optimization Software Developer" at ZYX Corp
[+] [-] habosa|2 years ago|reply
Looking casually at jobs lately I would say that 80% of them have posted salary ranges. This has been enormously helpful in a) helping me avoid jobs with inflated titles but low pay and b) attracting me to jobs I might not otherwise consider because of very competitive pay.
Seems like a win-win in most cases.
[+] [-] throwaway2203|2 years ago|reply
Not very useful, that.
[+] [-] _dp9d|2 years ago|reply
Extremely helpful. /s
[+] [-] greenyoda|2 years ago|reply
> Effective immediately, Governor Hochul has signed a law invalidating any provision in an employment agreement that requires employees to assign to the employer any rights to an invention developed entirely on the employee's own time without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secrets.[1]
[1] https://www.dwt.com/blogs/employment-labor-and-benefits/2023...
[+] [-] prepend|2 years ago|reply
I work in a very regulated organization where all pay rates are published with postings. [0]
But the ranges are $20-40k for each grade and it’s hard to tell what you will end up being offered and accepted.
I think it helps prevent some mismatches of people confusing $20k and $200k positions but I frequently see people with work history in the $30/hour range applying for very high pay jobs. I find it hard to accurately peg my market value.
When I worked in smaller orgs I would frequently see variability of 100-300% for the same job title. And even in really large orgs with big HR there might be a $100k pay band before bonuses.
So what do I do with a job posting that says $110-250k? If Im senior, do I apply and expect $250k not knowing if there’s a single person who is amazing making they amount? Or if Im junior do I ask for $110, knowing I could get more.
What I do is network to find what the actual pay is and negotiate around there. Or discuss with multiple offers.
Id like to see something like the IRS releasing more anonymized data from w2 for employers that will let you look up quartiles by employer, broken out by employee filing address.
This also has severe limitations but at least you can see how many employees they actually have and actually pay based on taxid. But self-reported pay data is so bad I don’t think it’s actually useful for stuff like “does this company I found on the internet actually hire people?” Unfortunately titles are so useless that I don’t think anything more than number of employees and distribution of their pay is better than what we have now.
The privacy implications are serious and need to be accounted for. But I think only releasing for orgs over 100 or something. Or only for publicly traded. Or only that receive public funds, etc etc
[0] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...
[+] [-] altdataseller|2 years ago|reply
I’ve also done some research where I took offers people disclosed in TeamBlind and compared them to the job posting, and in most cases the offer was very close to the midpoint https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SfaV1p_jbgoTOyCsD5wd...
[+] [-] dragonwriter|2 years ago|reply
> But the ranges are $20-40k for each grade and it’s hard to tell what you will end up being offered and accepted
Is it really that hard in fed land? I work for the state of California, and which has a similar level of regulation and similar posted ranges, but its pretty trivial most of the time to know exactly where you’d be set. I mean, its not 100% accurate, but this is right most of the time:
If you are apply from outside the system, you will be offered the exact bottom of the range and there will be no flexibility.
If you are inside the system, if its a lateral, you keep your pay. If its a higher range, you move up by the lesser of 5% or to the minimum of the new range. Also with no flexibility.
The circumstances with any flexibility are very limited, what you get is almost completely determined by how you got to the job.
> The privacy implications are serious and need to be accounted for.
Of by-employer actual pay distribution disclosure? Is that why public sector employers pay a hefty wage premium because their employees pay data is public on an individual level, which obviously has even greater concerns?
Oh, wait...
[+] [-] jstanley|2 years ago|reply
Does a low-paying job in the past disqualify you from high-paying jobs in the future?
[+] [-] version_five|2 years ago|reply
This is effectively populism, a simple and wrong solution to a much more complex problem.
[+] [-] lotsofpulp|2 years ago|reply
You apply with the knowledge that you will earn at least $110k, and if you want more, you should apply to more employers so that you have the negotiating position to ask for more.
[+] [-] blfr|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elromulous|2 years ago|reply
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37440358
[+] [-] ZoomerCretin|2 years ago|reply
I think the commenters here focus too much on themselves and people like them. This law was not written for SWEs with a market value of $120k/year who are being paid $80k/year. 0-60th percentile income workers are getting absolutely hosed and need every bit of negotiating power that they can get.
Our working and hiring culture is very weird and favors employers. Anyone can be fired at any time for (almost) any reason, so your ability to pay rent and put food in your mouth depends upon your ability to find another job. When that process involves several dozen or hundred job applications, long hiring timelines, multiple interviews across days, weeks, and months, >60% rates of ghosting at every step, and exploding offers, lower income workers are often forced to accept the first offer they get regardless of how much lower it is than their true market rate. This wage transparency policy helps low-wage workers avoid entering the long hiring pipeline for jobs that pay abysmal wages.
It is a strong net-positive for these workers who need it most.
[+] [-] CPLX|2 years ago|reply
It’s worked pretty well, you discuss it in the first steps of the process to make sure they get that’s actually how it’s going to work and then you spend your time interviewing people who are OK with the comp.
If the candidate pool isn’t any good then change the comp. And sure if you want to recruit a hotshot candidate or something nothing is stopping you from taking an individualized approach with that person.
I think people tend to overestimate their ability to game the process. Why not just say what you want.
[+] [-] febra_|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matwood|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edgyquant|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] entuno|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Eumenes|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pizzafeelsright|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KoftaBob|2 years ago|reply
It makes it so that applicants can see what all employers are offering up front, which incentivizes the employers to be more competitive on salary offer if they want applicants to choose to apply there.
Salary equality for equivalent positions within the company, as you're describing it, would require companies to publicly list what each of their existing employees are making, which is a completely different thing than what this law is requiring.
[+] [-] jncfhnb|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flerchin|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chiefalchemist|2 years ago|reply
Employment is nearly all cases is at will. Every interview stage ends with "Any questions?" There is definitely a time and place for government regulation. This is not one of them. It's too Nanny State-y.
[+] [-] altdataseller|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HumblyTossed|2 years ago|reply
Fair. But that's not how laws work. I may turn down a road not knowing that it's 35 and I get a ticket for going 45. Not knowing isn't an excuse.
[+] [-] logicalmonster|2 years ago|reply
1) This seems like a fairly decent bit of legislation for some standardized professions, particularly those that are often paid hourly, work in person and cannot be outsourced out of state, and in many cases are the most economically vulnerable. I'm thinking that it would be pretty decent for dishwashers, cashiers, gas station attendants, etc to know if a job is offering say $15-18 per hour or $20-25 per hour. But this seems horrendous for salaried remote knowledge workers, particularly those that have the ability to negotiate a better deal. And additionally, there will be unintended consequences of this legislation, such as some employers not wanting to deal with New York employees.
2) If the goal of this legislation is to prevent exploitation, it seems that requiring a salary floor would be important, but requiring a salary ceiling would be a negative part of this legislation as it makes it a lot tougher to allow employees to have the room to negotiate.
[+] [-] robertlagrant|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] viraptor|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gathersnow|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlchemistCamp|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] test6554|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redserk|2 years ago|reply
Start out as: "Senior XYZ-Division Backend Software Developer" at ZYX Corp
Then as you start touching more and more of the database, you get a new title to become the: "Senior XYZ-Division Backend Database Software Engineer" at ZYX Corp
At which point you get bored and switch departments to become the: "Senior CBA-Division Backend Performance Optimization Software Developer" at ZYX Corp
[+] [-] j16sdiz|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrdrippy|2 years ago|reply