Community Contributions (6/15)
How Wide Are Pay Ranges - And Does It Matter?
Deena Schwartz, Co-Founder and Principal at Opportunity and Mobility Research Collaborative
June 15, 2026
Welcome to Community Contributions, a blog series. These posts are written by National Labor Exchange (NLx) Research Hub community members, providing insight into what our users are doing with the NLx job posting data. This series will give you a glimpse of who the NLx Research Hub community is and how job posting data is incorporated into their work.
Our first series of Community Contributions posts highlights the Parsed Data Pilot the NLx Research Hub conducted April-May 2026. For this pilot, the NLx Research Hub utilized Amazon’s Nova Lite model to parse out pay information, degree mentions, remote status, part time status, and benefits mentions from 31.5 million job descriptions from 2024 and 2025. These blog posts highlight what pilot users discovered in their exploration of the parsed data. For more details on the parsing process, please reach out to the NLx Research Hub team, and stay tuned for more announcements on parsed data.
Since 2021, a growing number of states have passed laws requiring employers to include salary ranges in job postings. The goal of these laws is to level the playing field for job seekers, particularly women and people of color, who may be better positioned to negotiate when they have more information about what a job pays.
As more states have enacted these laws, questions have emerged about the width of posted pay ranges. Advocates and researchers have begun to examine whether very broad ranges provide job seekers with meaningful information — and whether wide ranges may work against the workers these laws were designed to help.
How do we measure pay range width?
To compare ranges across jobs and geographic areas, we calculated each range as a share of its midpoint — we call this range width. For example, a posting with a range of $90,000–$110,000 has a range width of 20%: the $20,000 spread is 20% of the $100,000 midpoint. A range of $70,000–$130,000 around the same midpoint would have a range width of 60%.
What we found
Across more than 7 million job postings with annual salary ranges, the median range width was 40.5% (in dollar terms, this would be a range of about $40,000-60,000). Hourly postings were considerably tighter — across more than 8 million postings, the median range width was 12.5% (in dollar terms, this could look like a range of about $22.50-25.50).
There is no universal standard for how wide a pay range should be. Wider ranges can reflect legitimate variation in experience, seniority, or geography. But range width is an important factor to consider when evaluating whether pay transparency laws are meeting their intended goals.
Do pay transparency laws lead to wider ranges?
One question worth examining is whether employers who post ranges to comply with state law post wider ranges than employers who do so voluntarily. To explore this, we compared range widths in states with and without pay transparency laws and tracked whether ranges shifted after new laws took effect.
State-level median range widths for annual salaries varied from 33% in New York (state law since before 2024) to 50% in Virginia (state law not yet enacted). For hourly rates, the range was from 5% in Pennsylvania to 34% in North Dakota; neither state had a pay transparency law during our study period. The seven states that had pay transparency laws in place before our data began (California, Colorado, Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, Washington, Hawaii) showed a median annual range width of 40%, compared to 43% in the 36 states without such laws. For hourly rates, the seven states with pay transparency had a median pay range width of 14%; the 36 without such laws had a range of 12% — small differences that do not suggest laws are driving wider ranges across the board.
We also tracked six states (Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Vermont) and Washington, DC where pay transparency laws took effect during our data period. The percentage of job postings with pay information did increase in these states–from 39% in the first month in our data period to 79% in the last month.
NLx Research Hub data from 2024-2025
When looking at pay range widths for annual salaries, generally range widths narrowed slightly after the law took effect (from around 44% to 40% from the first to last month in our data period).
NLx Research Hub data from 2024-2025
For hourly pay range widths, the opposite occurred: a slight widening after the law took effect (from around 11% to 15% from the first to last month in our data period).
NLx Research Hub data from 2024-2025
What this means
The data do not indicate that pay transparency laws cause employers to post significantly wider ranges — in most states that enacted laws during our study period, ranges stayed around the same. However, there were indications of potentially different patterns between annual and hourly pay with range widths narrowing modestly for annual salaries while widening modestly for hourly pay. More research is needed to understand if these are truly different patterns and if so, what is driving them. Still, a national median range width above 40% for salaried roles is worth noting as policymakers and advocates consider whether posted ranges are delivering the clear information these laws were designed to provide.
About the Author
Deena Schwartz is a Co-Founder and Principal at Opportunity and Mobility Research Collaborative (OMRC). She has led research and evaluation portfolios for 15+ years across federal agencies, nonprofits, and philanthropy to generate evidence that advances economic mobility and workforce equity. She holds a Master's in Public Administration from New York University.
