Maryland would require businesses to include salary ranges in job ads under legislation headed to Gov. Wes Moore (D), joining a half dozen states trying to shrink gender and racial wage gaps via pay transparency.
The bill (HB 649) won final approval in the state Senate on Friday with a 37-7 vote, after the House passed it March 15.
If Moore signs the bill, Maryland would become the seventh state to enact a pay transparency requirement for job ads, joining California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, and Washington state, as well as New York City and Washington, D.C. The governor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The spread of this new kind of mandate has sparked hope among worker advocates about the potential for more equitable pay in the US workforce, as businesses and even third-party job search websites are concerned about their compliance and litigation risk.
The measure would expand on current Maryland law, which already requires employers to disclose wage ranges to job applicants upon request.
The bill, which would take effect Oct. 1, would require employers of any size to include a pay range in all ads for jobs that will be physically performed at least partly inside the state.
The legislation calls for using an hourly pay or salary range based on an applicable pay scale, a previously determined minimum and maximum pay for the position, the pay of an individual holding a comparable position, or the budgeted amount for the position.
The state’s labor commissioner would handle enforcement and could impose fines. State lawmakers earlier removed language from the bill that would have allowed employees and job applicants to sue employers for violations.
The final version of the bill also omitted language covering jobs performed outside the state but reporting to an in-state supervisor or office—which would have mirrored New York state’s job ad law.
Similar pay transparency bills are pending this year in Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, and New Jersey. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) vetoed a pay transparency bill that state lawmakers sent to his desk on March 14.
The D.C. law is set to take effect June 30, and the Illinois mandate goes live Jan. 1, 2025.
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