Q. Can my Company use an applicant’s salary history to set their current pay rate?
A. Not for employees in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (covering California, Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington). In a case decided the day before Equal Pay Day, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that, in a claim for violation of the Equal Pay Act, salary history is not a defense to a claim of gender discrimination when a female employee complains that her salary is lower than that of her male counterpart.