[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$fP660qIus8v_nQ2T3pLwPxum1cdMocCZKdTaXXVHAtVk":3,"$fm6Ky0r9HHO8PTXKBgXJeU4fCLm4z6RKRMXFRXG3f560":31},{"success":4,"data":5},true,{"id":6,"slug":7,"title":8,"excerpt":9,"content":10,"category":11,"tags":12,"author":23,"cover_image_url":24,"reading_time_minutes":25,"is_published":4,"published_at":26,"created_at":27,"updated_at":27,"author_avatar":24,"is_featured":28,"meta_title":29,"meta_description":30,"meta_keywords":24},"8ce89c19-5efc-4a15-a0b7-bc58f1968b4a","six-pay-transparency-laws-2026-range-width-gap","Six Pay-Transparency Laws Took Effect in 2026. Almost None Say How Wide a \"Range\" Can Be.","The EU Pay Transparency Directive missed its deadline, Virginia and Maine joined the US patchwork, and Connecticut rewrote its law — all requiring a posted salary range. Only Ontario caps how wide that range can be, and new research shows the width is exactly where these laws are failing.","\u003Cp>\u003Cem>By NiceHire Team\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Four new salary-disclosure regimes crossed from statute book to enforcement this year: the EU's Pay Transparency Directive (deadline June 7), Virginia's law (July 1), Maine's (July 29), and Connecticut's rewritten one (October 1). A fifth, Delaware's, is queued for 2027. Add Ontario, which isn't EU or US but moved on the same calendar (January 1) and is the one jurisdiction in this group that actually tried to close the gap the others left open. Count them up with SHRM's tracker and the US alone now has eighteen states plus DC requiring a posted range in some form — other trackers count fewer, because they draw the line differently on what counts as \"requiring\" a range, which is itself a small preview of the bigger problem: almost nobody defines what a compliant range actually has to look like.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That's not a rhetorical flourish. It's the specific, checkable thing four of these five 2026-vintage laws have in common: each requires an employer to disclose \u003Cem>a\u003C\u002Fem> pay range. None of them — except Ontario — specifies how wide that range is allowed to be. And new research published this year, on an unrelated track from any of the legislating, found that the width of the range is not a neutral detail. It's the part of the disclosure that actually does the work, or doesn't.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2>Two different legislative philosophies, the same blind spot\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>The EU's Pay Transparency Directive (2023\u002F970) set a transposition deadline of June 7, 2026, and missed it almost everywhere. By the end of that month only four of 27 member states — Slovakia, Italy, Lithuania, and Malta — had fully transposed it, per a tracker compiled by \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwageindicator.org\u002Fai\u002Fwork\u002Fcollective-bargaining-agreement\u002Fupdates\u002F2026\u002Feu-sources-just-four-member-states-have-transposed-the-pay-transparency-directive-june-30-2026\u002F\">WageIndicator\u003C\u002Fa> and corroborated by \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.lewissilkin.com\u002Fen\u002Finsights\u002F2026\u002F07\u002F01\u002Feu-pay-transparency-directive-2026-employer-compliance\">Lewis Silkin's post-deadline compliance note\u003C\u002Fa>, which lists the same four as fully in force and flags Belgium and Poland as partial. Sweden is the outlier in the other direction: its government announced on March 26, 2026 that it opposes the Directive outright and wants it renegotiated at the EU level, rather than simply running late (per \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fleglobal.law\u002F2026\u002F04\u002F20\u002Feuropean-union-transposition-of-the-eu-pay-transparency-directive-across-27-member-states\u002F\">L&E Global's member-state tracker\u003C\u002Fa>). What the Directive actually requires, where it has landed, is that candidates get the starting pay or pay range before an interview (Article 5), that employers can no longer ask about current or past pay at any stage, and that workers can request their own pay level and the average for comparable work broken down by sex — with the burden of proof shifting to the employer in a pay-discrimination claim. Nowhere in that list is a ceiling on how wide the disclosed range can be.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The US pattern is procedurally different but lands in the same place. Virginia's law (HB 636 \u002F SB 215, signed April 22, effective July 1) is the most aggressive enforcement mechanism of the three 2026 entrants: it covers employers of every size, bans asking about pay history, and gives applicants a private right of action with only a 15-business-day cure period before a lawsuit can proceed — one of just two states, alongside Washington, to go that far (\u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Ftrusaic.com\u002Fblog\u002Fvirginias-pay-transparency-and-salary-history-law-takes-effect-july-1\u002F\">Trusaic\u003C\u002Fa>; \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.cooley.com\u002Fnews\u002Finsight\u002F2026\u002F2026-07-06-show-me-the-money-or-the-wage-range-new-state-pay-transparency-laws\">Cooley\u003C\u002Fa>). Maine's (LD 54, codified at 26 M.R.S.A. § 622-A, effective July 29) requires a pay range in every posting from employers with 10 or more employees, with a narrow carve-out for commission-only roles and a current-employee right to request the range for their own position (\u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.morganlewis.com\u002Fpubs\u002F2026\u002F05\u002Fmaine-passes-pay-transparency-law\">Morgan Lewis\u003C\u002Fa>; \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.jdsupra.com\u002Flegalnews\u002Fvirginia-and-maine-enact-pay-6832918\u002F\">JDSupra\u003C\u002Fa>). Connecticut's HB 5003 (Public Act 26-12, signed May 2026, effective October 1) rewrote the state's 2021 on-request disclosure law into a proactive one: the wage range and a description of benefits must now appear in the posting itself, not wait for an applicant to ask, and the range must be set \"in good faith\" against a pay scale, prior range, current comparable employees' pay, or the budgeted amount for the role (\u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.seyfarth.com\u002Fnews-insights\u002Fconnecticut-expands-pay-transparency-requirements-under-hb-5003.html\">Seyfarth\u003C\u002Fa>; \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.foley.com\u002Finsights\u002Fpublications\u002F2026\u002F09\u002Fconnecticut-expands-pay-transparency-requirements-starting-october-1-2026\u002F\">Foley\u003C\u002Fa>). Delaware's law, effective September 26, 2027 for employers with more than 25 employees, is written the same way. All four define a \u003Cem>range\u003C\u002Fem>. None defines a maximum spread.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ontario is the exception, and it's worth looking at precisely because it shows what closing the gap actually requires. The Working for Workers Four Act and its implementing regulation (O. Reg. 476\u002F24), effective January 1, 2026 for employers with 25 or more employees, don't just mandate a range — they cap it. A posted range for a role paying under $200,000 a year cannot span more than $50,000 from bottom to top; a $100,000–$140,000 posting is compliant, $100,000–$160,000 is not (corroborated by \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.lawtimesnews.com\u002Fpractice-areas\u002Flabour-and-employment\u002Fontario-job-posting-laws-tackle-vast-pay-ranges-spurred-by-rules-in-other-jurisdictions\u002F390519\">Law Times News\u003C\u002Fa> and \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.hcamag.com\u002Fca\u002Fspecialization\u002Femployment-law\u002Fnew-job-posting-requirements-for-ontario-employers-take-effect\u002F560964\">HCAMag\u003C\u002Fa>). It's a deliberate response to the exact failure mode the EU and US laws haven't addressed yet: a range so wide it discloses nothing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2>The research that caught up with the loophole\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>None of this would matter much if a wide range were just a wide range. It isn't. A 2026 \u003Cem>Journal of Applied Psychology\u003C\u002Fem> study by Lee, Park, and Chang — hosted as a working paper by \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.ilr.cornell.edu\u002Fsites\u002Fdefault\u002Ffiles-d8\u002F2026-05\u002Flee-park-chang-2026-payrangetransparency.pdf\">Cornell's ILR School\u003C\u002Fa> and summarized by both \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.shrm.org\u002Ftopics-tools\u002Fnews\u002Ftalent-acquisition\u002Fwide-salary-ranges-may-undermine-pay-transparency-goals\">SHRM\u003C\u002Fa> and the \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fstore.hbr.org\u002Fproduct\u002Fresearch-posting-a-wide-salary-range-can-deter-women-from-applying\u002FH092XA\">Harvard Business Review store page for the research\u003C\u002Fa> — ran four studies and found that women show a measurably stronger preference than men for jobs posted with narrower ranges, a pattern the authors attribute largely to higher risk aversion around an uncertain number. The effect doesn't stop at who applies. Among candidates who did pursue a role, the ones drawn to narrower ranges also negotiated less assertively: they reported greater satisfaction with a midpoint offer, were less likely to counter, and when they did counter, asked for less. Both SHRM's and HBR's summaries converge on the same mechanism: a wide range doesn't just fail to inform, it actively discourages the people most sensitive to pay uncertainty from applying or pushing back once they do.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The same research identified what actually works instead of a narrower number alone: pairing the range with plain context — the typical \u003Cem>starting\u003C\u002Fem> salary within it, and the criteria used to land on a final offer — substantially reduced the gap in both application behavior and negotiation confidence, according to the HBR write-up. In other words, the fix the data points to isn't only \"post a tighter range.\" It's \"tell candidates what the number means and how you got there,\" which a bare range, however narrow, still doesn't do on its own.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2>What employers are actually doing, a year into this\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>Ontario is the test case, because it's the one place with both a cap and nearly two years of before\u002Fafter data. Disclosure itself jumped hard: the share of Ontario postings carrying explicit pay information rose from 49% before the law to 71% by June 2026, per Indeed's tracker as reported by \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.hrreporter.com\u002Ffocus-areas\u002Fcompensation-and-benefits\u002Fhow-many-canadian-employers-include-salary-info-for-hr-jobs\u002F394704\">HR Reporter\u003C\u002Fa> (a single-source figure we could not corroborate against a second outlet, flagged as such). But within that mandatory disclosure, the median posted range widened, not narrowed, after the law and its $50,000 cap took effect — from roughly 16% spread in the first half of 2025 (the equivalent of $100,000–$116,000) to roughly 18% in the first half of 2026 ($100,000–$118,000), per the same reporting. Even under an explicit numeric ceiling, employers moved toward more room inside it, not less. Meanwhile Indeed's own US national tracker shows the \u003Cem>share\u003C\u002Fem> of postings disclosing any pay information growing at a decelerating rate — 50.4% in July 2026, up only 1.9 points from 48.5% a year earlier — even as more states joined the mandate list in between. More jurisdictions are requiring a number. The number itself isn't obviously getting more useful.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Ch2>Where we come out on this\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\u003Cp>NiceHire sits in the part of the hiring process this split exposes most directly — job postings and the structured interview pipeline that follows them — without a stake in which legislative model wins. What the research above says is worth taking seriously regardless of which side of the Atlantic, or which US state line, an employer is hiring across: a number alone, however it got onto the page, isn't what makes a disclosure requirement work. The context behind it is. A posting that satisfies Virginia's, Maine's, or the EU Directive's letter while leaving that context out has cleared the statute, not done what pay-transparency law was written to accomplish. Employers preparing for Delaware's 2027 deadline, or a second wave of EU transpositions, have a cheaper and already-evidenced option sitting in the same research: don't just narrow the range. Explain it.\u003C\u002Fp>","Compliance",[13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22],"pay transparency","salary range laws","EU Pay Transparency Directive","Virginia pay transparency law","HR compliance","hiring laws 2026","compensation transparency","pay equity","job postings","HR tech trends","NiceHire Team",null,7,"2026-10-21T00:16:22.018+00:00","2026-10-21T00:16:23.025034+00:00",false,"2026's Pay-Transparency Laws: Nobody Regulates Range Width","The EU Directive, Virginia, Maine and Connecticut all mandate a posted salary range in 2026. Only Ontario caps its width — and new research shows that's exactly the gap that matters.",{"success":4,"data":32},{"posts":33,"count":79,"hasMore":4},[34,36,49,64],{"id":6,"slug":7,"title":8,"excerpt":9,"category":11,"tags":35,"author":23,"cover_image_url":24,"reading_time_minutes":25,"published_at":26},[13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22],{"id":37,"slug":38,"title":39,"excerpt":40,"category":11,"tags":41,"author":23,"cover_image_url":24,"reading_time_minutes":25,"published_at":48},"1a9783dc-48f2-4e3a-adde-c058fbce17d7","eu-pay-transparency-directive-patchwork-2026","The EU's Pay Transparency Deadline Passed in June. Hiring Across Europe Still Means 27 Different Rulebooks.","The EU Pay Transparency Directive's June 7, 2026 transposition deadline has passed, and only a handful of member states fully complied. Here's what the patchwork actually means for anyone hiring across EU borders right now.",[13,42,43,44,45,46,22,47],"EU compliance","hiring regulation","salary disclosure","gender pay gap","international hiring","employment law","2026-10-20T00:14:25.031+00:00",{"id":50,"slug":51,"title":52,"excerpt":53,"category":11,"tags":54,"author":23,"cover_image_url":24,"reading_time_minutes":25,"published_at":63},"e75b658a-fb40-4c89-8551-f4f0f03aab77","the-us-now-has-three-state-ai-hiring-laws-none-require-an-independent-audit","The US Now Has Three State AI-Hiring Laws — None Require an Independent Audit","California, Illinois, and Connecticut have each put AI-hiring rules into force in the past year, but none require the independent bias audit many assume is standard. Here is what each law actually demands — disclosure, four-year record retention, and effects-based liability — and what that pattern means for anyone buying or building AI screening tools in 2026.",[55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62],"AI hiring compliance","California FEHA","Illinois HB 3773","Connecticut AI Act","AI in hiring","bias audit","HR tech regulation","employment law 2026","2026-10-06T00:27:58.018+00:00",{"id":65,"slug":66,"title":67,"excerpt":68,"category":11,"tags":69,"author":23,"cover_image_url":24,"reading_time_minutes":77,"published_at":78},"73e63698-b636-41e1-8c33-98178f10f0af","no-robo-bosses-act-human-in-the-loop-2026","California Just Told Employers: A Human Has to Actually Decide","California's new No Robo Bosses Act bars AI-only firing and discipline decisions. Here is what it actually requires, why an earlier version was vetoed, how it differs from NYC and Illinois AI-hiring law, and what any employer running automated hiring or performance tools should check now.",[70,71,72,73,74,75,76],"AI regulation","California SB 947","No Robo Bosses Act","AI hiring law","compliance","HR tech","automated decision systems",8,"2026-10-04T00:27:46.583+00:00",23]