The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld a Philadelphia law Thursday prohibiting employers from asking about wage history.

In 2017 Philadelphia enacted the Philadelphia Wage Equity Ordinance, which sought to remedy the wage gap for women and people of color. This ordinance contained two provisions: the Inquiry Provision and the Reliance Provision. The Inquiry Provision prevented employers from asking potential employees about their previous wage history, while the Reliance Provision prevented employers from relying on potential employees’ previous wage history to determine wages for the job for which he or she was currently interviewing.

When the city council was initially determining to enact the ordinance, they heard testimony from both the Public Policy Chair of the American Association of University Women and the Managing Attorney for the Women’s Law project:

A sizeable wage gap exists between men and women in Pennsylvania, one that is substantially larger for women of color. Unequal pay has persisted despite the existence of equal pay laws banning sex discrimination in wages for five decades. Discrepancy in pay continues, in part because current laws targeting discrimination, such as the Equal Pay Act, specifically allow employers to justify paying women less than men based on what is describe as a factor other than sex. Many courts have interpreted prior wages as a factor other than sex, when in fact, it is typically not. It is not gender neutral. A woman’s prior pay may very well be based on a sex discriminatory assessment of her worth. It reflects historical market forces based on sex stereotypes and assumptions about the value of the equal work of one sex over the other.

The Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations will announce its plans for enactment of the Philadelphia Wage Equity Ordinance in the near future.