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NYC Council Hears Testimony on New Pay Equity Bills

On December 12th, PowHer®New York (PowHer®NY) and key partners, Legal Momentum, NELA, Community Service Society, and Dr. Solange Charas testified before the NYC Council Committee on Civil and Human Rights about three new bills key to closing the gender and racial pay gap.  

These bills are an important step in an almost twenty year effort to shift attitudes, assumptions and policies to address gender and racial wage and opportunity discrimination. PowHer®NY’s Equal Pay Campaign has been instrumental in successes including laws requiring salary range transparency in job postings and a salary history ban. New bills Int 808, Int 982 and Int 984 challenge society to confront past, ingrained practices and systemic wage discrimination and to take action to end inequitable pay through greater transparency. 

PowHer®NY President and Founder Beverly Neufeld and partners testified at the hearing about Intro 808A, which aims to strengthen New York City’s salary range disclosure law, and Intros 982 and 984, which introduce a pay data reporting requirement for NYC employers, similar to those implemented in states like California and Illinois. 

Testimony examined how Intro 808-A will strengthen our current pay transparency law in key ways. We also underscored that Int. 982 and Int. 984 are important steps forward in joining the movement of pay data reporting legislation underway across the globe. Special thanks to Seher Khawaja (Legal Momentum), Miriam Clark (NELA NY), Hilary Wilson (Community Service Society), and Dr. Solange Charas for providing expert testimony (linked below).

Despite increasing momentum and widespread attention to pay inequality, the new presidential administration could seriously threaten our decades of hard work and progress in pay equity. The first Trump Administration quashed the promising developments in Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) pay data collection, known as EEO-1 Component 2 added in 2016. Also, there is growing opposition to efforts for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. NYC must do all it can to protect workers, women, and people of color in New York City, and to promote equity and expand opportunities for all workers through our laws.


Int. 808-A will strengthen Local Law 59 (2022) and address important omissions.

New York City government embraced the imperative and rationale for increased pay transparency with Local Law 59 in 2022, a groundbreaking law that required New York City employers to disclose salary ranges in all job postings. In 2024, Majority Whip Council Member Brooks-Powers introduced Int 808-A, which offers comprehensive, essential amendments to the current law.

Key changes proposed by Int. 808-A will:

  1. Provide much needed clarity on how employers should determine the salary range included in job advertisements.
  2. Mandate employers disclose a job description alongside the range.
  3. Require employers to disclose not just base pay but any broader forms of compensation offered such as bonuses as well as core benefits, including health benefits, sick time, and paid family leave. 
  4. Extend transparency to current employees by requiring employers to disclose pay ranges not only to applicants but to existing employees upon request, but no more frequently than annually.
  5. Ensure disclosure of the pay range to a candidate upon their request at any point during the hiring process. 
  6. Require employers to be transparent about salaries if they ultimately pay outside the range

Int 982 (Caban) and Int 984 (Farias) will expand NYC’s municipal pay data reporting to the private sector to create broader transparency and align with international and national trends.

Pay data reporting is already in effect in the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, and many other countries, as well as in multiple U.S. states. Following the precedent of NYC’s municipal workforce pay data analysis laws, the New York City Council should extend the call for gender and racial pay gap transparency to the private sector with effective pay data reporting legislation. 

Requiring employers to report their pay data by gender, race, and ethnicity is an important tool to uncover and address wage inequality.  In Europe, the E.U. Pay Transparency Directive (2023) requires E.U. employers of over 100 employees to report their gender pay gaps, as well as the proportion of men and women in each of four quartile pay bands. The United Kingdom’s Equality Act (2017 Regulations) and Canada’s Employment Equity Act require very similar reports, but also make this information public which puts employers under scrutiny for the outcomes of their pay practices. Indeed, numerous international businesses, including many that also operate in New York City, are already reporting on their pay data for employees in Europe, the UK, Canada, and elsewhere. As well, the EU directs companies to evaluate pay beyond equal pay for equal work to the international standard of equal pay for work of equal value, as well as other factors beyond the scope of US employers current evaluations. Syndio, a leading workplace equity platform which provides PowHerNY with guidance, offers information on the EU directive.

The movement for pay data reporting legislation has also taken hold in the United States. California, Illinois, and Minnesota have passed and implemented pay data reporting requirements in recent years. Even without the pressure of legislation, shareholder advocacy has pushed many major U.S. businesses to join the wave of pay data transparency as reported in the annual Arjuna Capital Racial and Gender Pay Scorecard.

New York State has also already demonstrated a strong political will to support pay data reporting. In 2022, the Equal Pay Disclosure With Respect To State Contracts Act (S2239/A5773) passed in the Senate and Assembly, as did another data reporting bill,  S8345/A8449 but both were vetoed by Governor Hochul.

The efforts of pay equity advocates in Europe, Canada, and other states provide us with a wealth of examples of pay data reporting legislation to learn from. Drawing from these examples, a comprehensive approach to New York City pay data reporting would identify unfair pay, opportunity gaps and occupational segregation. Public disclosure of pay data analysis by employer or industry would be an effective method of increasing employer accountability. With Int 982 and Int 984, New York City has an opportunity to join and lead an important growing movement of pay equity legislation that is reaching across the globe. 


Read the full PowHerNY pay transparency testimony (PDF)

Read Legal Momentum’s pay transparency testimony (PDF)

Read NELA NY’s pay transparency testimony (PDF)

Dr Solange Charas Statement in Support of City Legislation on Pay Transparency (PDF)

Read Community Service Society’s pay transparency testimony (PDF)