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The Employer Handbook Blog
Soon, all employers may be forbidden from asking about a job applicant’s salary history
Last month, Massachusetts passed a new law, which will take effect in July 2018, and make it illegal for employers to ask about a job applicant’s salary history before making an offer of employment. As Stacy Cowley at The New York Times reports (here), the impetus for the new law is to reduce the wage gap between men and women:
By barring companies from asking prospective employees how much they earned at their last jobs, Massachusetts will ensure that the historically lower wages and salaries assigned to women and minorities do not follow them for their entire careers. Companies tend to set salaries for new hires using their previous pay as a base line.
Now, three members of the U.S. House of Representatives, including Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, the first woman to chair the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), plan to introduce similar legislation federally.
.jpg#/media/File:Aroldis_Chapman_2010_(3).jpg "By SD Dirk on Flickr - Originally posted to Flickr as \"Aroldis Chapman\", CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9998613")
