Effective March 1, 2024: Employers with 15 or more employees in the city of Columbus, Ohio are prohibited from inquiring about or using an applicant’s salary history:

• to screen job applicants,
• in deciding whether to offer employment, and
• in determining salary, benefits, or other compensation during the hiring process.

Employers are also prohibited from refusing to hire or otherwise retaliate against an applicant for failing to disclose salary history.  However, employers and applicants may discuss expectations as to salary, benefits, and other compensation.

The law does not apply to voluntary and unprompted disclosures of salary history information by applicants. It also does not apply to applicants for internal transfers or promotions within a company; positions for which salary, benefits, or other compensation are governed by a collective bargaining agreement; federal, state, and local government employees (other than the city of Columbus); applicants who are re-hired by the employer within three years; or any actions taken by an employer under any federal, state, or local law that specifically authorizes reliance on salary history to determine an employee’s compensation.

With this law, Columbus joins Toledo and Cincinnati as Ohio cities that make it an unlawful discriminatory practice for an employer to inquire about a prospective employee’s salary history. Unlike those laws, though, this one does not require employers to share the position’s pay scale with the applicant after a conditional offer of employment.

Click here for more information.

For more information on Salary History and other laws, and whether they affect your state, visit the Hire Image Resource Library.

Please contact us if you have any questions about your own background screening practices.