California bill bans asking job applicants about salary history

California employers could no longer ask job applicants about their salary history under a new bill authored by Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman, Assembly Bill (A.B.) 168.

The new legislation would ban employers from requesting the pay history of a job applicant in an effort to close the gender pay gap. The bill would also require employers to give applicants the pay scale for a position upon request and would apply to all employers, including state and local government.

Three states—Delaware, Massachusetts and Oregon—have enacted laws banning employers from asking about salary history and 25 states have considered such bills this year, according to SHRM. Illinois and New Jersey lawmakers passed salary history ban bills that were then vetoed.

According to 2016 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, California women who were full-time wage and salary workers had median usual weekly earnings of $814 or 88.0 percent of the $925 median usual weekly earnings of their male counterparts.

Barring employers from asking questions about salary history so that previous salary discrimination is not perpetuated is key to closing the state’s gender wage gap, Eggman said

Opponents of the legislation, however, argue that the bill would place burdens on employers and would not necessarily address the issue of gender wage disparity.