If you’ve ever applied for a job, you know about that tricky salary history question interview

If you’ve ever applied for a job, you know about that tricky salary history question interviewers almost always ask.

Today New York City will officially ban employers from asking about pay history during hiring processes in order to address the city’s wage gap which keeps women and people of color from earning the same amount of money for the same amount of labor compared to white men. 

Irecently finished reading mathematician Cathy O’Neil’s book, Weapons of Math Destruction, and learned that even if a question about pay history is entirely removed, interviewers can use questions about salary expectation as a proxy and that can still limit a minority’s chance to be paid fairly. Plus, with the help of third-party vendors and credit check companies who amass data on Americans all the time - selling our personal data - I wanted to learn more about how the law can prevent employers from taking advantage of applicants in our era of data collection and inequality.

So, I spoke with the First Lady of New York City, Chirlane McCray, along with the commissioner on NYC Commission on Human Rights, Carmelyn Malalis, and public advocate, Letitia James, who was the main person to introduce the legislation. Here’s the interview.

Image: Marina Prokic