In May of this year, New York City will join a small group of states including Colorado, California, Connecticut, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Washington requiring that all job listings post a salary range.
Posted salary ranges help alleviate bias and discrimination in hiring practices as we can all see the expected outlay from employers for the open position. In other words, by posting a salary or wage range, you are less likely to discriminate by offering one group of people less than others.
Most employers aim to hide the budget for the open position attempting to pay the least amount to a new hire and, thus, save money. It is in their self interest. Thus, can we conclude that posting salary ranges reduces the likelihood of paying one group of people less than another?
According to this recent article, wage transparency very effectively reduces pay disparity. They argue, however that it also reduces the ability to reward individual bargaining power of workers. Examples of this include, bonuses for outstanding performance or a slightly higher salary to attract a high-performing member to your team.
They argue that by rewarding individuals for subjective activities, they would have to renegotiate the pay of the entire team. I understand this argument as the point of wage transparency – removing the subjective pay such that you can discriminate.
Clearly, I am not an expert on labor economics, so I will herd my thoughts toward the corral of prediction: how will this law affect the cultural sector given that New York plays a starring role in this play with its abundances of cultural institutions?
Based on the cited research, I think that we can indeed expect to see some leveling of salaries. I presume that we will see it more, however, in the upper administrations of museums and companies where more men dominate decision-making roles and where wage disparity is more likely.
My bigger hope, though, remains a broader rise in pay for those who work directly with collections. These professionals, who tend to be mostly women and thus less likely affected by the wage transparency laws, have cultivated lots of education and expertise in a niche area who have their love of history and material culture leveraged against them in the form of lower pay. In other words, if you progress in your career to earn more money, you move away from working with collections and objects which initially attracted you.
I do not expect that exposing an industry-wide low rate of pay will do much to actually raise that wage. In fact, it may stand to actually reinforce that wage by simply showing a strong precedent toward certain pay scales and, thus, justify the offered wages. This is literally how “market rates” work.
Alternatively, if the wages prove low enough, it could generate enough outrage to provoke new collective bargaining actions or unionization by already overstretched employees.
If wages do rise, I expect that the demands on the jobs will increase. I gather from my colleagues that the pandemic has already accomplished this. Losing staff through layoffs or resignations has often resulted in remaining employees taking on additional projects and tasks instead of rehiring positions. Some of these projects get outsourced to contractors, but malnourished budgets prevent total relief.
In the end, the wage transparency law will assuredly provide data. This information will shed light on and continue the conversation most sustainably ignited by the “Arts + All Museum Salary Transparency 2019” Google Doc. What does an entry-level position pay? What does a senior-level position pay? In other words, the data could temper the expectations of people aspiring to join the field or simply push them away altogether.
