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Comment by ravenstine | Hacker News Reader

As much as I understand why people would want this, I'm not sure that I do. It's bad enough that wages are stagnant, but now we're making it more difficult for people to effectively sell their desired pay to prospective employers? A big reason why my pay increased substantially is not because of bonuses or loyalty but because I asked new employers for way more than what I was paid before, and this worked in part because their job posting didn't include a salary range, thereby not leading to a situation where I ask for what I think my time is worth and get laughed at because it's beyond a listed number they will inevitably low-ball on.

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> A big reason why my pay increased substantially is not because of bonuses or loyalty but because I asked new employers for way more than what I was paid before, and this worked in part because their job posting didn't include a salary range, thereby not leading to a situation where I ask for what I think my time is worth ...

Nothing stops you from asking for X+Y when the stated rate is X. All it does is give you a free floor of X in case your original amount was less than X.

> ... and get laughed at because it's beyond a listed number they will inevitably low-ball on.

Grow a thicker skin and laugh right back at them.

Yeah, nowadays the first thing I talk about with a recruiter is "I'm only interested in jobs that can pay 250k+ for remote work, more for in-person" so I don't waste my or their time if they think $100k is a possibility

What kind of programming do you do?

I'm a driver developer, but I think it actually pays less than a lot of the stuff you'll see attached to big bucks on levels.fyi

Which kernel?

I'm not dead-set on big bucks like I see on levels (though I wouldn't turn them down). I'd just like to have the same confidence in my skillset/field that you seem to. Most of my beginning experience in the programming field has been webdev and mobile which seems like a fad-juggling act more than a 'be good at your thing and lean on it' act. I assume you mostly write C/C++?

Not all industries are in such a high growth mode as tech was in the recent past.

This provides some efficiency for workers, because there are companies out there who hide ranges and then low-ball really hard, wasting everyone’s time.

> This provides some efficiency for workers, because there are companies out there who hide ranges and then low-ball really hard

There is an element of psychological warfare introduced by having companies provide hard numbers for what they are willing to pay, especially for industries where employees are less empowered than in tech. By making companies provide salary ranges, you're convincing most employees to not suggest pay that is outside of that boundary. People have a bias towards making choices that appear agreeable, even if it means choosing something like less pay. It's very profitable to convince employees suppress their own pay.

> People have a bias towards making choices that appear agreeable, even if it means choosing something like less pay.

If true, how do public pay ranges affect this negatively?

Assuming your premise is correct, without the public pay range, employee would likely accept whatever number employer throws out.

With the public pay range, employee can sort job listings and eliminate employers paying at the bottom, or at least reply back with “if you do not pay me as much as businesses X, then I will go apply there”.

Also, this law is for employees to know when their market price has risen and new coworkers are earning more.

People who earn a lot discuss their salary more, so without public ranges your perception will be biased towards the higher end so likely you'll ask for more.

I don't see how this changes anything. At every non-tech job I've ever had there was no salary negotiation, I either took what was offered or I didn't get the job.

It also means that every employee can look at the competitor and see who pays more. Loyalty doesn't go far when you see the other guy pays 20% more.

The law doesn't appear to prevent negotiating a range higher than advertised. Nor does it prevent the employer from posting a large range.

This should force employers to do a better job assessing what value a position provides and advertising the salary range appropriately. Currently, they know the value, but will attempt to low-ball applicants to the extent possible.

> they know the value, but will attempt to low-ball applicants to the extent possible.

When you buy a car or a house, do you bid the value, or do you try to low-ball and see if the seller will bite?

When I bought my house in a major US metro, any attempt to low-ball the seller simply meant your offer would go immediately in the trash in favor of one of the dozens of asking-plus bids, and continued attempts to do it was a surefire way to extend the unpleasantness of house hunting. And house prices in my city are up 20% since 2020, so I don't think the situation has become more amenable to low-ballers.

And that's all beside the point, because the information asymmetries in real estate markets are totally different from labor markets. This law reduces the information asymmetry to actually make labor markets more like real estate markets, in which all historical prices are public information and (in civilized jurisdictions, at least) all known relevant factors that might affect price are legally required to be disclosed.

What about the information asymmetry inherent about you knowing what your abilities are, and the company does not know?

If you've ever hired someone, you'll find out about this asymmetry.

Indeed, I've hired many people. The nice thing is that as an employer in most of the US, you can just fire them for any reason or none at all. I don't think the possibility of doing multiple interviews only to discover that the candidate you've had ample opportunity to question is actually a complete incompetent justifies underpaying/attempting to underpay the rest of your, presumably competent, employees. I promise you, if you stop structuring compensation with the assumption that your employees are worthless, you'll stop getting so many incompetent or recalcitrant employees.

The difference being that in those cases both parties know you're lowballing. Which this bill introduces in this market too.

I'm fairly certain the CO law prevents just listing a massive pay range. If the CA law doesn't have some similar protection then it's highly likely to be used as a loophole.

You can always ask / demand more than what a salary listing shows. I've done that for my last two jobs.

And your employees could’ve access your old salary data already. Giving access to it for prospective employee doesn’t change it.

But now companies can collude to suppress salaries, as they can look up open reqs of competitors and stay within the same range.

The only way this works out is if you can privately negotiate above the published range.

Also, what is to keep employers from defining unique job categories for every role?

* they’ve already been prosecuted for doing this with the current opaque salary system

* these nightmare scenarios have not played out in markets where this is already the law like CO. Jobseekers aren’t naive, they flood towards good job postings and leave shady practice job offers dry.

> * they’ve already been prosecuted for doing this with the current opaque salary system

My point is that it will now be easier to collude, as public postings can be scraped by anyone, so now collusion isn't done privately but through public signaling.

That is not collusion, that is just a market where supply of labor drastically outnumbers demand for labor. Indicating to suppliers of labor to supply their labor to different buyers.

It was always easy to collude. Any company of a significant size (100+ employees) is hiring consultants to determine market rates for employees. Here's the one mine uses [1]

Making that data public only helps employees because.

1. Current employees can look at listings and realize if they are underpaid or overpaid.

2. New employees can skip past low wage employers (forcing them to raise their wages if they want more employees).

[1] https://radford.aon.com/products/surveys/technology-compensa...

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