California’s state senate voted to pass what’s been called the nation’s most aggressive pay transparency measure Tuesday, moving forward a bill that would require many businesses to post salary ranges in job ads, as well as publicly report more data about how groups of employees are paid.

If a similar version of the bill passes the state’s assembly and is signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), California could become the third state and the seventh jurisdiction in the nation to require employers with at least 15 employees to publish pay ranges in job postings, giving applicants access to information before they lowball answers about salary expectations or waste time applying for underpaying jobs.

Yet while California is playing catch-up to states like Colorado and Washington, which already have similar laws on the books, the bill is also likely to make an outsized impact if it passes, even acting as a tipping point for employers to take such policies nationwide.

“[California’s] magnitude of scale is a big deal,” says Benjamin Ebbink, a partner based in Sacramento at the employment law firm Fisher Phillips. When a big state like California passes such a law, “it’s more likely employers do it just for administrative ease. It has sort of a multiplier effect.”

The bill is similar to the law passed in New York City earlier this year, which came under opposition from employers who pushed to postpone its implementation to November. Because of the number of employees hired in...

Read Full Story: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenamcgregor/2022/05/24/california-employers-cou...