State pay transparency laws moved fast between 2021 and 2025. Here's what the data shows about applications, posted ranges, and wage gaps.
The first US state-level salary transparency law (Colorado's Equal Pay for Equal Work Act) took effect in 2021. By 2025, similar laws were in force in California, New York, Washington, Illinois, and dozens of cities. The empirical question — does transparency change anything — now has enough data to answer with caution.
Pay transparency laws vary in scope — some require ranges in postings, some require disclosure on request, some include benefits. Colorado SB 19-085, NYC Local Law 32, California SB 1162, Washington's SB 5761, and Illinois HB 3129 are the highest-impact statutes.
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Indeed Hiring Lab's tracking of pay disclosure in US postings shows a steady rise driven by state laws — the largest single jumps follow when major-state laws took effect.
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LinkedIn Talent Insights and Glassdoor research consistently find postings with disclosed pay ranges attract 20-30%+ more applications than equivalent postings without ranges. Candidate self-selection is part of the effect — applicants screen on pay before applying.
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Indeed and Payscale data show that the median width of posted pay ranges grew by 30-50% after major state laws — employers post broader ranges to retain flexibility, which has been a frequent criticism from candidates.
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Academic research on pay transparency's effect on the gender pay gap (notably Cullen & Pakzad-Hurson, NBER) finds modest narrowing of gaps in short-term post-implementation data, with the size of the effect dependent on enforcement and disclosure scope.
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Statistics come from publicly-available state laws, posting-data analyses by job-board research arms (Indeed Hiring Lab, LinkedIn Economic Graph, Glassdoor Research), and academic working papers. Effect sizes on wage gaps are sensitive to methodology and time horizon.
For candidates: pay-transparency laws have made comparison much easier and reduced the information asymmetry that historically favoured employers. The widened ranges — and the gap between top-of-range and where most hires actually land — remain a critique. For applications: posting with disclosed pay attracts more applications, but candidates also screen more aggressively. The simplest practical advice: if you're applying in a transparency-law state, search for postings with ranges and use them to gauge market positioning before negotiating.
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