As more states and cities adopt salary transparency laws, it's becoming clear that workers expect a fair shot at equitable, competitive wages. But the U.S. is still a long ways away from nationwide transparency.
Seventeen states have salary transparency laws in place, and New York is one of the latest cities to join the movement. As of September, New York City employers must reveal the minimum and maximum hourly or salary compensation for any job, promotion or transfer opportunity. While this law impacts four million workers, many Americans are still in the dark.
Job search site Adzuna examined 80 million job posts worldwide, noting which countries had the highest percentage of salary disclosure. The U.S. placed second to last, with just under 3% of job posts containing clear salary information.
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"There is a culture of salary secrecy in the U.S. and shifting this to a more transparent culture is no easy feat," says Paul Lewis, chief customer officer at Adzuna. "But we believe that pay transparency is an important way of leveling the playing field, especially in today's market, where there are huge salary gaps based on race and nationality, gender and health."
In September, Adzuna launched the #MakeSalariesMandatory campaign while petitioning the federal government to enforce nationwide salary disclosure on job posts. Lewis underlines that the culture of salary secrecy makes it easier for employees to waste their time applying for jobs that are later revealed to pay too little — and if an employee takes the job, they will likely find themselves underpaid for their labor. In fact, Adzuna found that U.S. workers have wasted over 480 million hours applying for jobs with the wrong salary.
Nationwide transparency is possible. For example, in the U.K., which ranked number one on Aduzna's list, nearly 60% of its job posts contained salary information. Lewis is hopeful that the U.S. will see more federal movement on this issue as well as more employers making a commitment to salary transparency in the new year.
Here are the best and worst countries for salary transparency based on the number of job posts with pay clarity, compiled by
