NYS Pay Transparency Law

New York State’s salary transparency law goes into effect September 17, 2023. Here’s what you need to know.

On December 21, 2022, NYS Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law the Pay Transparency Law, which created a statewide salary transparency requirement for all New York State employers with four or more employees. On March 3, 2023, a few amendments to this law were signed into legislation.

First and foremost, what is Pay Transparency?

Pay transparency is the act of sharing compensation information for positions within your business, including but not limited to: pay rates for available positions, pay increases, bonuses, benefits, and more.

The goal of pay transparency is to help close the pay gap. In 2020, women earned 83 cents for every dollar men made. The gap is even greater for black women (64 cents) and Hispanic women (53 cents).

What is required under this new law?

Any employer in NYS with four or more employees must comply with the requirements of this new law, including:

Listing the minimum and maximum annual salary or hourly range of what they reasonably or in “good faith”* expect to pay a successful applicant when advertising a job, promotion, or transfer.
If a position is paid entirely based on commission, employers must include “a general statement that compensation shall be based on commission”. But this doesn’t apply to positions that also receive a base salary or partial wage and partial commission.
Disclose the job description for the position, if one exists.
This includes any job that is physically performed, at least in part, in New York state, remote jobs that report to a supervisor based in New York state, or a remote position that reports to a site or facility located in New York state.

*Good faith means what the employer believes they are willing to pay a successful applicant at the time they publish the listing.

This law defines “advertise” as: “to make available to a pool of potential applicants for internal or public viewing, including electronically, a written description of an employment opportunity.”

The amendment removes the requirement to keep records of salary disclosures and job descriptions for the original six year period of time, but employers should maintain records of all compensation provided to employees in accordance with preexisting labor laws.

What are the penalties of not complying with this new law?

According to the law, any business found in violation to the new law will be subject to civil fines of:

$1,000 for the first violation
$2,000 for the second violation
$3,000 for the third violation

Individuals cannot privately take action against employers who don’t comply, but they can file a complaint with the NYS Department of Labor commissioner.

The NYS Department of Labor has posted more details on their website here.

Note: Starting in September 2023, ASI will no longer share job postings that don’t list the salary or pay range in their postings.