I live in Colorado. I have a Denver-based freelance writing business that does freelance writing in Colorado in person, and clients all over the world online. But, I end up looking at job postings from time to time, because I’m that guy. Someday, I’ll find something amazing and they’ll want me to, and then my family will have to deal with me being a freelancer and a guy working a “real” job. The additional salary should help when I use it to jet off to even more places.
Colorado Job Postings Have Pay Ranges
I noticed a month or two ago that job postings I looked at started including salary ranges.
Now, government jobs have included salary ranges for years because of reasons.
But, regular, private sector jobs tend to not post the salary range for jobs they post online. That leaves you to make an educated about what the salary of a particular job might be based on the job title and duties. The issue with this is that some companies underpay, and other companies pay really well, and there is no way to know which is which until you submit a resume, fill out their duplicative online application, and then get far enough along in the interview process to ask about salary.
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I suppose some companies find enough success posting a job that should pay $60,000 and then spring a $45,000 salary on candidates hoping that the candidate is desperate enough (or dumb enough?) to say yes. For me, it’s a big waste of time that I could have used finding better opportunities, or playing with my kids because I would never work for less than I’m worth.
Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do about it, other than search the web, ask connections, or try glassdoor.com or something.
Or is there?
Why Job Postings Have Pay Ranges
Everyone knows that across a big enough sample size that men are paid more than women. One of the reasons often cited is that women don’t negotiate well enough for their salaries. Or, maybe they are the people that say, “OK,” to that $45,000 offer for a job that should be paying $60,000. Which brings us to Colorado’s new pay equity law.
On January 1, 2021, the Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act went into effect. There are already laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, race, religion, etc…, but we all know that it doesn’t always do what it is supposed to, and enforcing the law requires either costly litigation or attracting the attention of a government agency.
The Colorado Equal Pay law seeks to improve upon the existing discrimination laws with new ways to file complaints, and new things that are set in statute that count, or do not count as pay discrimination. If you’re interested in this, go back to google and hit some of those law firm results.
Other provisions of the law regard transparency, and while not intended, this part of the law helps me too 😀
Colorado Law Requires Job Postings Include Salary Range
The transparency provisions require that each job-vacancy posting includes an hourly rate range, or salary range, and also a general description of benefits. This takes out another issue where you often have to spend time applying for a position only to find out they don’t offer health insurance.
Ironically, as is the case with much legislation, the actual real-world result of the legislation remains to be seen. For example, the salary ranges thing sounds great, but many jobs come with very wide salary ranges.
A recent job posting lists a salary range of $104,000 to $160,000. At least this shows you they are serious about filling this position and won’t end the interview process by offering a salary of $75,000 or something crazy. Or, if they do, I suppose it is your own fault for applying to something with a low salary range.
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That being said, there is plenty of room for discrimination between $104,000 and $160,000. If the women hired come in near $105,000 and the men come in at $150,000, but I guess at least you would know you were offered the bottom of the range. Another posting I saw has a range of $56,000 to $126,000. That’s the difference between an average-paying job and a good-paying job. Unless I was barely qualified for that job, I’d insist on the middle or higher.
Colorado Law Prohibits Salary History
There is one other piece that helps me as well. Employers are not allowed to use previous salary information in the hiring process. The idea here is that if a woman, or minority, were discriminated against at their old job and given a lower salary than their male counterparts, the new company can’t use that discriminatory salary against you. That is good for beating discrimination, but it’s also good for a freelance financial writer with 10-years of experience, so I don’t have to try and come up with a “salary” out of ongoing short and long-term engagements that vary widely in their pay based upon how hard they are, how much work they offer, and whether or not I like working with them as clients.
You Can Blab About Your Salary In Colorado
There is another interesting bit to the law. The Colorado Equal Pay act also prohibits employers from preventing employees from talking about their salaries.
Until the act passed, most employers had some sort of rule against discussing your salary, although they differed greatly in how or when such rules were enforced. I guess the idea here is that if minority employees don’t know that their $65,000 is significantly lower than non-minority employees, they can’t avail themselves of the anti-discrimination provisions in either State or Federal law.
It looks like some lawmakers were paying attention to how things work in the real world, and that’s a nice change.
An unintended effect of the new law might be to push salaries higher in Colorado. After all if company XYZ offers it’s content managers $80,000 to $100,000 and company ABC offers its content managers $60,000 to $80,000, where would you apply first? The same applies for near minimum wage jobs. You want to flip burgers for $14 per hour, or $16 per hour?