Require job ads to show a pay range, and make large employers publish their pay gaps every year
Steps to make it happen
- Employers must always write the lowest and highest pay for the job when they post a job opening.
- Companies stop asking people who want to work for them how much they were paid at their last job.
- Workers can ask their company for the average pay of people who do the same work.
- Companies and public offices with many workers publish every year the pay gap between their highest-paid person and their middle person.
- They also publish whether pay differs for the same work by gender or by full-time and other job types.
- When a gap cannot be explained, the company makes a plan with its workers to fix it.
- Pay becomes something everyone can see, and talking about unfair gaps becomes normal.
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The proposal in detail
This proposal changes a situation in which only the employer holds information about pay. First, every employer shows the lowest and highest pay for a job when it posts the opening. Asking applicants what they were paid at a previous job is banned in principle. Second, workers can ask their employer for the average pay of people doing the same work as theirs, or work of equal value, broken down by categories such as gender, and the employer answers within a set period. To keep any one person's pay from being identified, categories with few people are left out of what is made public. Third, companies and public bodies with more than a certain number of workers publish every year the ratio between the pay of their highest-paid person and that of the person in the middle, the distribution of pay, and the differences by gender and type of employment. Pay includes not only base salary but also bonuses and pay in the form of stock. Agency and contract workers are counted in the figures for the workplace where they actually work. If there are unexplained gaps above a certain level, the employer investigates the causes together with representatives of the workers and presents a plan for improvement. Each society decides where to draw the line on the size of workplaces covered, but no upper limit is set on the ratio itself, and the measure stops at checking through publication. Simple forms are provided for small businesses to lighten their paperwork.
BenefitsPeople can notice hidden pay gaps and regain bargaining power
If the pay range and the distribution of pay inside a company are known, workers and applicants can negotiate knowing where their own pay stands compared with the going rate and their coworkers. The people who were at a disadvantage because they lacked information are likely to gain the most. Not asking about pay at a previous job also makes it easier to break the chain in which low past pay is carried over to the next workplace. When differences by gender and type of employment are published every year, employers themselves can notice gaps that arose without anyone intending them, and this gives them a reason to fix them. Showing the ratio between top pay and middle pay gives shareholders, workers and society a common basis for discussing how an organization pays its people. The state does not set the amount of pay itself. Instead it opens up information to encourage talks between the people involved, so improvements that fit the circumstances of each organization and industry can be expected. Another feature is that it adds to the after-the-fact support of taxes and benefits by acting at the entrance, where income gaps begin.
DrawbacksPaperwork, friction at work, and uncertain effects
The first objection from the opposing side is the view that how pay is set should be a free agreement between employer and worker, and that society should not interfere in detail. There is a concern that making pay public would take away the flexibility to pay more for results or rare skills, making it harder to keep talented people. Pressure to bring pay ranges into line may also build, and instead of top earners coming down, everyone may be flattened, which could lower motivation. Having comparisons with coworkers out in the open could also create dissatisfaction and conflict at work. Collecting and publishing the figures takes time and money, and the burden falls more heavily on smaller organizations. In addition, the ratio between top and middle pay differs greatly from one industry to another, so the numbers may take on a life of their own and lead to wrong judgments. People may also look for loopholes, such as moving work outside the company to avoid publication. Some also point out that even if information is opened up, it is not certain that the pay of people whose bargaining power is weak will actually rise.
Learn the background
In many parts of the world, the gap in income earned from work has kept growing for a long time. Even inside the same organization, it has been pointed out in many places that the pay of top managers has risen sharply while the wages of people on the front line have not gone up much. One reason such gaps arise is the imbalance of information about pay. Employers know the pay of everyone in the company and the going rate, but workers and applicants have almost no way to find out whether their own pay is fair or how much it differs from the person next to them. In some cases, workplace custom or contracts even keep people from talking about pay. As a result, people who are not good at negotiating, people who were paid little at a previous job, and women and workers in non-regular jobs are likely to stay stuck at low pay for unclear reasons. If the next wage is set based on the previous one, a gap that opens once is carried along even when the person changes jobs. Some say that redistribution after the fact through taxes and benefits cannot keep up on its own, and the need is growing to rethink the stage at which pay is set.
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This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-15d) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes