Employers who employ individuals who work in New York City should be prepared to comply with the New York City wage transparency law, which goes into effect on November 1, 2022.
In addition, employers who employ individuals who work in Westchester County, N.Y., should be prepared to comply with a similar wage transparency law that goes into effect on November 6, 2022.
Prohibition on Requesting Compensation History
Under the Westchester County law, employers also cannot ask or require applicants to reveal their compensation history, ask a former employer for the applicant's compensation history, or rely on that wage history in determining compensation.
The sole exception to this prohibition is when an applicant voluntarily provides compensation history to support a higher wager than the employer has offered, in which case the employer may, after obtaining written authorization from the applicant, contact a prior employer to confirm the prior compensation.
Similar laws that prohibit inquiries into an applicant's salary history during the hiring process went into effect in New York City in 2017 and in New York State in 2020, as we previously reported. The NYC and NYS laws also allow employers to verify applicants' representations about their salary history if the applicant, voluntarily and without prompting, offers information about salary history for the purposes of negotiating for higher compensation.
Proposed New York State Law
New York State has also proposed a wage transparency law that has not yet been signed by Governor Hochul. To the extent that the NYC law imposes stricter requirements on employers, the NYC requirements would apply.
By contrast, the Westchester County law has a preemption clause, which states that the law will be "null and void" if a New York State or federal wage transparency law is enacted that "incorporate[es] either the same or substantially similar provisions." As no similar federal law has been proposed, if the NYS law is signed by the Governor, employers who are only located in Westchester County would have to comply with the NYS law only.
Next Steps
Employers in New York City and Westchester County, N.Y., should review their current compensation ranges to assess whether to make any changes to attract new candidates or retain current employees.
In addition to including ranges for NYC jobs that will be posted on or after November 1, 2022, and for Westchester County jobs that will be posted on or after November 6, 2022, employers should review any current postings and update them to include compensation ranges before the effective dates of these laws. These include jobs that are posted on a company's website or intranet, as well as jobs posted in any online forum such as LinkedIn or Indeed. If an employer uses an employment agency to post positions, the employer should provide compensation ranges to the agency and ask that they be included.
We will continue to monitor wage-transparency-law developments and provide new information when it becomes available.
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