Forbes – “The persistence of the pay gap for women and minorities has called for new policies and research in recent years as pressures mount across industries hoping to level the playing field. A new study at Boston University, released this week, might point to one solution: salary history bans.  Many who study labor law believe that when employers ask prospective employees for their previous salary, potential disparities in pay as a result of race, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability are passed on. That’s why, in recent years, advocates for equal pay began calling for salary history bans in the hiring process. Massachusetts was the first state to prohibit potential employers from asking about applicants’ salary history before making a job offer in 2018. Since then, 18 other states have enacted state-wide bans, and 21 local municipalities have put their own ordinances forbidding the practice in place. Three researchers at the Boston University School of Law Technology and Policy Research Initiative were exploring an increase in job postings that listed salaries around the same time that salary history bans were being implemented. The group was investigating the link between the two happenings, and that work eventually led to continued research into the effectiveness of salary history bans in combating pay inequities…”