Starting Wednesday, many Massachusetts employers will have to comply with a new wage transparency law that requires them to disclose the annual or hourly pay range in job postings.
Gov. Maura Healey signed the bill, formally called An Act Relative to Salary Range Transparency, into law in 2024, calling it an important step to increase equity and close wage gaps in the commonwealth.
Employment lawyer Laura Studen, senior partner at Zucker Law Group in Boston, said the new law is built upon 2016’s Massachusetts Pay Equity Act. But she said this new version puts a little more pressure on employers to comply and make a good faith effort to ban secrecy policies in terms of salaries.
“The intention is to shrink the pay gap,” Studen said, noting that the law is “designed to promote fairness.”
Here’s what workers and employers need to know about the new law.
According to the Massachusetts attorney general’s office, research shows that salary range transparency in the hiring process is one of the best tools to close gender and racial wage gaps.
And the AG’s office cites that most workers are more likely to apply for a job and trust the workplace if the pay range is listed in a job posting.
“The hope is by increasing transparency about pay ranges, disparities will disappear and we will see greater equity across gender, race, nationality, and so forth,” said Ryan Quinn, an assistant teacher professor at Northeastern University.
Besides just posting the salary...
“This has been one of the most difficult and traumatic periods of my life.” It’s pretty wild how quick a lawyer threatening a lawsuit can bring a person, company, whatever, to heel. And Ian Battri...