this is why we are a Republic of States, and we're supposed to care more about state and local elections than the Federal ones, but it seems like nobody learns this from high school civics class anymore (myself included).

A California state mandate on pay disparity would probably be generally well-received, for example.

exactly! this is why our Republican (not the party) system of government is so great, different states can try different things and other states can learn from each other, both in what to do, what not to do, and even "well, that worked for that state, but I don't think it'll work well for us." it's a neat system, and one that I feel is increasingly underappreciated, as everyone wants all legislation to be done at the federal level.

I don't understand the privacy rebuttals. Pay transparency doesn't mean your personal salary is identifiable.

It depends on the size and diversity of the company. If your company size is small and they list 10 tech leads and only one has 20 years experience, or a masters, or is female, then it's pretty easy to work that back to them. They've shown similar things for anonymous medical records not being so anonymous.

So larger populations and smaller number of attributes would probably make it better, but not foolproof.

No matter what the company will know everyone's salaries. The question is mainly whether you want to be ignorant, or not. Usually these things (at least with the government) don't list experience, or educational attainment.

"Usually these things (at least with the government) don't list experience, or educational attainment."

Seems pretty useless without that. Those are huge factors.

"The question is mainly whether you want to be ignorant, or not."

That's not the only question. The other question mostly being discussed here is if you want anyone to be able to know your salary by working backwards from the published list, specifically in small companies.

> Seems pretty useless without that. Those are huge factors.

The point is to allow for more transparency, not perfect transparency.

> That's not the only question. The other question mostly being discussed here is if you want anyone to be able to know your salary by working backwards from the published list, specifically in small companies.

In practice this doesn't matter, but even if this were an issue you could exempt employers with fewer than 100 employees.

"In practice this doesn't matter"

How so? Even at 100 employees you might only have 5 tech leads. So the population of the subgroups matter.

"The point is to allow for more transparency, not perfect transparency."

What can we actually do with that transparency if it doesn't have the attributes necessary for meaningful comparison?

The point is to create a range in which both current and prospective employees can refer to. Obviously it's not perfect as that would require all information which would be a privacy concern.

Are you arguing knowing nothing is better than knowing something?

"Are you arguing knowing nothing is better than knowing something?"

No one is saying that. That is a gross misinterpretation of my statements.

"The point is to create a range in which both current and prospective employees can refer to."

A range based on what? The point being discussed here is equal pay. Ranges dont help if you have all the women at the low end and the men at the high end, hypothetically. If you just want to post salary ranges by position you can do that without publishing individual salaries.

Maybe you should have specified that.

Even with that said, I work at a small enough company where anonymous salaries could still easily be associated with an individual, and I would still not like that, for privacy reasons.

Specified what? Pay transparency has never meant personally identifiable salaries.

In the interest of debate, I don't quite understand them either. But America is a country I have never fully understood!

It’s already mandated if you’re a government employee, which millions of people are.