Salary history bans limit employers' ability to ask applicants about past earnings, and effectively halt residual pay gaps from persisting, which is shown to benefit all applicants — but women and African Americans, especially.
Researchers at Boston University found that after states implemented salary history bans, pay for job switchers increased 5 percent more on average than for comparable job changers in states not covered by such a ban.
The gains were more pronounced for African Americans and women, who saw increases of 13 percent and 8 percent, respectively.
Salary history bans may benefit these groups more than others because they make it harder for employers' salary offers to perpetuate any past pay inequities a worker may have experienced due to discrimination, James Bessen, the study’s lead author and an economist at Boston University School of Law, told The Wall Street Journal.