Compensation transparency

Wage transparency, salary compensation, and compensation transparency generally, involves disclosure of employee compensation amounts, either among other employees in an organization, to owners, to government regulators, or to the public.

Some jurisdictions have pay transparency laws intended to prevent discrimination based on demographics like gender or race. These laws require job listings to give a salary range for the position. To eliminate unintentional discrimination and treat employees more ethically, some organizations have adopted radical transparency, disclosing all employees' compensation internally and either equalizing pay for similar positions or justifying differences.

Some jurisdictions mandate disclosure of executive compensation to shareholders, in an attempt to reduce excessive compensation.

According to a 2024 review of existing evidence, pay transparency within a firm tends to narrow coworker wage gaps, but also incentivizes employers to bargain more aggressively to keep average wages down. Within-firm pay transparency also reveals to workers pay differences across different levels of seniority, which "can lead to more accurate and more optimistic beliefs about earnings potential, increasing employee motivation and productivity." Cross-firm pay transparency overall strengthens the power of workers against employers, as workers are more likely to seek higher-paying jobs, and negotiate higher pay at their current job.

Canada
Under Ontario's Employment Standards Act it is illegal for an employer to "intimidate, dismiss or otherwise penalize an employee or threaten to do so" because the worker has disclosed their own wages or because the worker has inquired about the wages of another worker for the purposes of determining the employer's compliance with the law's Equal Pay for Equal Work provisions.

United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, the Equality Act 2010 protects the rights of workers to discuss pay and forbids employers from prohibiting a worker's "relevant pay disclosure".

Federal law
In the United States, the National Labor Relations Act protects the right of employees to discuss compensation without retaliation from their employer.

By state or territory
California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Nevada, Rhode Island, and Washington have passed compensation transparency laws as of 2023. Some US cities also have compensation transparency laws, including New York City.

New York enacted a pay transparency law in 2023. The law requires employers to publicly disclose job salary ranges.

Maryland's Equal Pay for Equal Work law states that "an employer may not prohibit an employee from inquiring about, discussing, or disclosing the wages of an employee or another employee".