Minnesota Governor Tim Walz recently signed into law a pay transparency requirement that will require employers with 30 or more employees in Minnesota to provide wage ranges on job postings beginning January 1, 2025.
Omnibus Labor and Industry Policy Bill contains a pay transparency provision that will go into effect on January 1, 2025. In passing this law, Minnesota joins a growing number of states that have passed similar requirements over the last few years, including California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New York, and Washington, DC. The new Minnesota law is in addition to the preexisting Minnesota wage disclosure protections that went into effect on January 1, 2024 prohibiting employers from inquiring into the pay history of applicants for employment.
The new law requires covered Minnesota employers to disclose in each job posting the projected salary range and “a general description of all of the benefits and other compensation” offered for the position including, but not limited to, “any health or retirement benefits to be offered to a hired job applicant.”
The legislation defines “salary range” as the “good faith estimate” of the minimum and maximum annual salary or hourly wage range for the position. If there is no salary range for a position, the employer must list the fixed pay rate for that role. A salary range cannot be open-ended.
The legislation does not provide any information on how much information is needed regarding benefits and other forms of compensation that employers make available to successful candidates.
As such, pending any future guidance, it appears that to be compliant with the law it is sufficient to include broad description of the types of benefits and compensation available, such as stating that “medical and wellness benefits, including physical, dental, and visual benefits, will be made available” or that “hired candidates may be eligible to receive additional compensation in the form of bonuses, commissions, or deferred compensation.”
The law applies to all employers, including any “individual, corporation, partnership, association, nonprofit organization, group of persons, state, county, town, city, school district, or other governmental subdivision,” that employs 30 or more employees at one or more sites within the state of Minnesota.
For purposes of the law, a “posting” is defined as any solicitation intended to recruit job applicants for a specific available position made electronically or via printed hard copy that includes qualifications for desired applicants.
The law also applies to any indirect recruitment through a third party. For example, if an employer utilizes a third-party recruiting agency, the agency also will be required to include the necessary disclosures in its advertisements.
The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry and Minnesota Attorney General have authority to investigate and enforce this law. The law does not specify penalties for noncompliance.
In advance of the January 1, 2025 effective date, covered employers should review all public and internal-facing job postings and advertisements to ensure these materials include the required wage and benefit information. Covered employers also should ensure that any recruiters or third-party agencies that post job opportunities on the employer’s behalf are compliant with the law.
Finally, multistate employers should confirm the company’s compliance with pay transparency laws in other states and localities.
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