Do pay-transparency laws work? The state-by-state map of who shows salary
Twelve US jurisdictions now require a pay range in the job posting itself — Virginia became the thirteenth on July 1, 2026, days after this snapshot. We counted actual salary disclosure in every metro-pinned posting in the JobLobster corpus to map what employers really do, law or no law.
Key findings
- Postings in posting-law states disclose pay at 70.2% vs 44.1% in states without a law — a 26-point gap across 134K US metro-pinned postings.
- The six most transparent big-city job markets are all in law states: Boston (79.5%), Denver (78.8%), New York (76.4%), Los Angeles (75.3%), Seattle (72.7%), Minneapolis–St. Paul (71.2%). The least transparent: Oklahoma City (22.4%), Philadelphia (22.5%), Pittsburgh (29.9%).
- US-remote postings disclose at 68.8% — near law-state levels. A remote ad can be seen from Colorado, California, and New York, so the strictest law travels with it.
- Canada shows the same split: Ontario, whose posting law took effect January 2026, discloses at 59.2% vs Quebec’s 23.2% (no law). British Columbia (law since 2023): 44.3%.
- Virginia’s pre-law baseline is now on record: 38.9% (Richmond 42.2%). Its law took effect July 1, 2026; Maine follows July 28. This page is the before-picture.
Law states: everyone above 59%
Salary-band disclosure in metro-pinned postings, for the nine law jurisdictions with a meaningful sample (787 postings in Maryland up to 31,393 in California). Hawaii, New Jersey and Vermont have too few metro-pinned postings in this corpus for a fair row:
| Law jurisdiction | Share |
|---|---|
| Massachusetts | 77.9% |
| Colorado | 77.7% |
| New York | 76.2% |
| Washington | 72.7% |
| Minnesota | 71.2% |
| California | 67.6% |
| District of Columbia | 63.2% |
| Maryland | 61.2% |
| Illinois | 59.9% |
No-law states: a 39-point spread
The same count for the sixteen no-posting-law states with at least 1,000 metro-pinned postings. Note Arizona at the top — no law, 64.8% disclosure — and Pennsylvania at the bottom. Transparency clearly has a market-pressure component the law only accelerates.
| No-law state | Share |
|---|---|
| Arizona | 64.8% |
| Utah | 57.5% |
| Ohio | 53.5% |
| Indiana | 51% |
| Tennessee | 50.8% |
| Michigan | 48.8% |
| North Carolina | 47.8% |
| Wisconsin | 47% |
| Georgia | 45.9% |
| Florida | 45.2% |
| Texas | 40.9% |
| Virginia | 38.9% |
| Nevada | 36.5% |
| Missouri | 33.6% |
| Oklahoma | 28.2% |
| Pennsylvania | 26.3% |
The metro league table
The 31 US metros with at least 1,000 pinned postings, ranked by disclosure. Bold = posting law in effect at the snapshot. The median is the midpoint of disclosed bands (USD postings, professional roles) — in low-transparency metros it skews high because only well-paying employers volunteer the number (see Pittsburgh: 29.9% disclosure, $153K median).
| Metro | Discloses pay | Median posted midpoint |
|---|---|---|
| Boston · law | 79.5% | $137K |
| Denver · law | 78.8% | $108K |
| New York · law | 76.4% | $157K |
| Los Angeles · law | 75.3% | $135K |
| Seattle · law | 72.7% | $153K |
| Minneapolis–St. Paul · law | 71.2% | $95K |
| Phoenix | 68.3% | $146K |
| San Francisco Bay Area · law | 66.7% | $182K |
| Washington, DC · law | 63.2% | $126K |
| Chicago · law | 59.9% | $121K |
| San Diego · law | 58.1% | $122K |
| Nashville | 53.6% | $128K |
| Indianapolis | 51% | $134K |
| Charlotte | 48.2% | $110K |
| Orlando | 47.6% | $135K |
| Miami | 47.2% | $130K |
| Raleigh–Durham | 46.6% | $140K |
| Tucson | 46.4% | — |
| Atlanta | 45.9% | $143K |
| Dallas–Fort Worth | 43.3% | $140K |
| Tampa Bay | 42.5% | $133K |
| Richmond | 42.2% | $135K |
| Houston | 41.3% | $129K |
| Austin | 38.9% | $140K |
| San Antonio | 37.3% | — |
| Las Vegas | 36.5% | $115K |
| St. Louis | 34.8% | $108K |
| Kansas City | 32.2% | — |
| Pittsburgh | 29.9% | $153K |
| Philadelphia | 22.5% | $105K |
| Oklahoma City | 22.4% | — |
Canada runs the same experiment
Provincial posting laws arrived on different dates — and disclosure tracks them. Ontario’s law is six months old and Toronto already discloses at 59.8%; Montreal, with no law, sits at 22.8%.
| Province | Share |
|---|---|
| Ontario (posting law since Jan 2026) | 59.2% |
| British Columbia (posting law since Nov 2023) | 44.3% |
| Alberta (no posting law) | 37.3% |
| Quebec (no posting law) | 23.2% |
What to watch next
Virginia (July 1, 2026), Maine (July 28, 2026) and Delaware (September 2027) all flip from the no-law to the law column next. This snapshot is their baseline — Virginia at 38.9%, days before enforcement began. We re-run this scan monthly; if the laws work, these rows should climb toward the 60–80% law-state band within a few reporting cycles. Journalists: we’ll run the before/after cut on request — hello@joblobster.ai.
Methodology
JobLobster maintains a live index of job postings pulled directly from public employer applicant-tracking-system feeds (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workday and others) — primary-source ads, not scraped aggregator copies. This analysis covers all 558,596 postings active in the corpus during the first week of July 2026, the same snapshot behind the companion studies. Professions and seniority come from JobLobster’s deterministic role classifier; salary figures use only postings that disclose numeric bands. The corpus skews toward North American professional roles; percentages describe this corpus, not the entire global labor market. Metro assignment uses JobLobster’s geo resolver (a posting’s primary metro); metros are classified by the posting-law status of their anchor state at the snapshot (the Washington, DC metro is counted under DC’s law although its Virginia suburbs were not yet covered). Law status verified against employment-law compliance trackers, July 2026. Fully-remote postings are excluded from state rows and reported separately. Disclosure = a posting publishing a numeric salary band. Association, not causation. Companion study: The Salary Transparency Report (disclosure by profession and work mode).
“Do Pay-Transparency Laws Work?, July 2026” — analysis of 558,596 live job postings, July 2026. Link: https://joblobster.ai/research/pay-transparency-laws-2026. Custom cuts for journalists: hello@joblobster.ai.
Questions
Where does this data come from?
JobLobster indexes live postings directly from employer applicant-tracking-system feeds. This study counts numeric salary-band disclosure across postings pinned to North American metros (134,264 in the US, 13,414 in Canada) in the July 2026 snapshot, classified by whether the metro sits in a jurisdiction whose law requires pay ranges in the posting itself.
Do the laws cause the difference?
We count; we don’t claim causation. The association is strong — every one of the nine law jurisdictions with a meaningful sample discloses above 59%, while most no-law states sit far below — but industry mix differs by metro, and Phoenix (68.3%, no law) proves market pressure alone can get you most of the way. Treat this as the map, not the mechanism.
Why is Virginia counted as a no-law state?
Virginia’s pay-transparency law took effect July 1, 2026 — after the postings in this snapshot were published. That makes these numbers Virginia’s pre-law baseline (38.9% statewide in our corpus; Richmond 42.2%). Maine follows on July 28, 2026, and Delaware in September 2027. We re-run the scan monthly, so the before/after will be published here.
Which laws count as "posting laws"?
Laws that require a pay range in the job posting itself, in effect at the snapshot: California, Colorado, Washington, New York, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, Maryland, New Jersey, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Washington, DC — plus British Columbia and Ontario in Canada. Connecticut, Nevada, and Rhode Island require disclosure only on request or at interview/offer, so they count as no-posting-law here.
Can I cite or republish these numbers?
Yes — cite "JobLobster analysis of 558,596 live job postings, July 2026" and link this page. Custom cuts (specific state, metro, or profession): hello@joblobster.ai.