How will Nevada’s new pay equity law impact employers?

by Kaleb Roedel

Your next salary offer might look nothing like your current pay, due to a new law in the Silver State.

On Oct. 1, Nevada became the latest state to prohibit public and private employers from asking about a jobseeker’s salary or benefits in a previous role.

Under the new law, Senate Bill 293, employers are also required to provide the wage and salary range to applicants they interview as well as existing employees who apply for promotions or transfers.

The move stems from a slew of new laws around the U.S. aimed at closing wage gaps in the workforce. The theory behind them is that using past salaries to benchmark future pay can perpetuate unfairly high or low wages that workers carry from job to job, says Philip Mannelly, an employment attorney at McDonald Carano in Reno.

“It’s a trend throughout other states implementing similar laws, with the goal of combating historical pay inequities,” Mannelly says. “So what employers cannot do is seek out or ask for past employment wages or salaries. And they can’t make employment decisions based on a candidates refusal to provide past history.”

Even if a prospective candidate voluntarily discloses their former earnings, Nevada employers cannot use that information to determine whether to hire someone or what their pay rate will be, Mannelly notes.

Nevada’s new pay transparency and equity law applies to public and private employers, staffing firms, and state, county and local government agencies.

Mannelly says SB 293 may benefit women and minorities more than others because it makes it harder for employers’ salary offers to perpetuate any past inequities a worker may have experienced due to discrimination.

Read the entire article in the NNBW: https://www.nnbw.com/news/2021/oct/12/how-will-nevadas-new-pay-equity-law-impact-employe/