Congress is in a recess right now, but this Representative has one thing she wants to do when she returns. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s (D-DC) wants to get rid of salary histories. This will make it illegal for employers to ask what your salary was at your previous job.
This bill will hopefully help to get rid of the “wage gap” between the genders. Women make about 79 percent of what a man does. Norton has a history of enforcing employment opportunity laws with the Equal Employment Opportunity Office.
She was inspired by a law in Massachusetts. It prohibits an employer from asking about your previous salary until after a job offer has been extended.
When you graduate from college, you negotiate your salary based on your school curriculum and performance. That gets you started in your career. That puts you on the path toward making more. It traps women into a certain salary range, and the wage gap will continue if we don’t change that.
Norton said:
“If this disparity can begin from the moment you go to your first job, and it follows you throughout your career, it will never be rectified and the wage gap itself will never be rectified. It is a hidden form of discrimination that many employers may think is reasonable to ask and may not understand the discriminatory effect.”
It also gives employers an excuse to pay less for the position. When the position opens up, the company usually has a salary range in mind. If the candidate’s previous salary was lower, then the company can offer that. The salary history isn’t really relevant; it doesn’t show how the employee will fit in with the current company.
Also, many people look for other jobs because they feel they are being underpaid. If the new employer is allowed to ask your salary history, you may never get the raise you deserve. Employers shouldn’t be using that as a measure of your performance or your worth.
Here is a clip from a podcast talking about salary histories:
https://youtu.be/w3MNt7w6ZiY
Featured image by Thomas Galvez, available under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
