Paid Below the Posted Range? What Labor Law § 194-b Does and Does Not Do for You

On September 10, 2026, the EEOC announced that Lely North America, Inc. agreed to pay $65,000 to a former employee over a wage increase denied on the basis of sex. That conciliation is in our post on the Lely charge; a reader on LinkedIn then asked the question this post answers: “My job is posted with a salary range, and I am paid below it. Do I have a case?”

Not from the posting. Since September 17, 2023, Labor Law § 194-b has required a compensation range on job, promotion and transfer postings for work performed at least in part in New York. It is a posting rule, enforced by the Commissioner of Labor. It gives you no lawsuit for a missing or false range, and the range on the page is not what any person is paid. The claim, if there is one, is under Labor Law § 194, and it is proved with payroll records obtained in discovery. The posting tells you where to look.

The posting rule, and who enforces it

The section provides that no employer “shall advertise a job, promotion, or transfer opportunity that will physically be performed, at least in part, in the state of New York” without disclosing “the compensation or a range of compensation” and the job description “if such description exists.” The range is the minimum and maximum “that the employer in good faith believes to be accurate at the time of the posting.”

New York City wrote the rule first. N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 8-107(32) has required “the minimum and maximum annual salary or hourly wage” on postings for work performed at least in part in the City since November 1, 2022; the State copied it statewide from September 17, 2023. Those two laws are why every job board now forces a range into every New York posting. The employer’s side of both is in our pay transparency compliance guide.

A violation of the State section goes to the Department of Labor. A person aggrieved “may file with the commissioner a complaint,” and the employer “shall be subject to a civil penalty in accordance with section two hundred eighteen.” Labor Law § 218(1) sets that penalty, for a violation that is not an unpaid wage, at “not to exceed one thousand dollars for a first violation, two thousand dollars for a second violation or three thousand dollars for a third or subsequent violation.” The City kept one thing the State did not copy: a current employee may sue the current employer over that employer’s own advertisement.

No reported decision construes the State section; a search of CourtListener on September 22, 2026 found none. Consequently, the posting is the Commissioner’s business. Your case, if you have one, is under a different section.

The claim is Labor Law § 194, and payroll records prove it

Labor Law § 194(1) is the claim. No employee “with status within one or more protected class or classes shall be paid a wage at a rate less than the rate at which an employee without status within the same protected class or classes in the same establishment is paid for” equal work or “substantially similar work, when viewed as a composite of skill, effort, and responsibility, and performed under similar working conditions.” Since October 8, 2019 the section has reached every protected class the Human Rights Law names. A differential is lawful only where it is “based on” seniority, merit, a production system, or “a bona fide factor other than status” that is “job-related with respect to the position in question” and “consistent with business necessity.” In Eisenhauer v Culinary Inst. of Am., 84 F4th 507 (2d Cir 2023), the Second Circuit put the proof of that fourth defense on the employer.

Now the proof. The comparator’s rate is in the employer’s payroll system and nowhere else, and a lawsuit reaches it. CPLR 3101(a) provides for “full disclosure of all matter material and necessary in the prosecution or defense of an action,” and the payroll records, offer letters and pay bands for every person in the title are that matter. The demand for them is the first paper I serve after the answer; a subpoena to the payroll processor follows. That was the proof before September 17, 2023, and it is the proof now.

Labor Law § 194(4)(a) adds that no employer “shall prohibit an employee from inquiring about, discussing, or disclosing the wages of such employee or another employee”; keep the answer in writing. The sections fit together this way.

What a posting can and cannot tell you

My view is that the posting section does not change the private case. It changes how you find it.

Consider a paralegal at a firm on Old Country Road in Mineola. The firm posted her title at $80,000 to $110,000 and hired her at $78,000. The posting tells her one thing: the firm wrote down that the job is worth at least $80,000, and she is paid less. That is a reason to investigate and a fact to plead. It is not a comparator. The equal pay section asks what a person outside her class is paid for substantially similar work, and no posting answers that, because a posting states a range offered for a job, not a rate paid to a person. The man hired under the same posting may be at $78,000 too; if he is, there is no claim.

Where the posting is useful is in aiming the discovery. Postings are dated, and from them the paralegal can list who came into the title under each one: say twenty paralegals over two years, eight men and twelve women. The payroll records for those twenty people are what the subpoena asks for. If they show the men paid on average $10,000 more inside the same posted range, the differential is proved by the employer’s own numbers. The postings mapped the comparator group. The payroll made the case. A posting below which you are paid is enough to open a file. It is not enough to win one.

Let me say this the way I say it on the phone. The claim is 194. You can’t go to your employer and say, I want to see what everyone makes. You subpoena the payroll records. Even without 194-b, if you suspected you were being paid less than the men, you would subpoena the records anyway and prove it through circumstantial evidence. I don’t think 194-b changes that for the private person. Where it helps you is if you ask why there is no range on the posting and they fire you. Then you have retaliation under the Labor Law or the whistleblower statute.

That is my position; the contrary argument is that a posted range is an admission of the job’s value. No court has ruled either way as of September 22, 2026, and the appellate courts will prove or disprove my reading as the law matures.

The one private claim the posting section creates

Labor Law § 194-b(2) provides that no employer “shall refuse to interview, hire, promote, employ or otherwise retaliate against an applicant or current employee for exercising any rights under this section.” It names no court and no damages; those come from two other sections, and I plead both.

Labor Law § 215 forbids an employer to “discharge, threaten, penalize, or in any other manner discriminate or retaliate against any employee” because the employee “has made a complaint to his or her employer” about conduct the employee “reasonably and in good faith, believes violates any provision of this chapter.” The posting section is a provision of that chapter. Consequently, the paralegal who writes to the office manager that the firm’s new posting carries no range, or that she is paid below it, has made a protected complaint. The section gives reinstatement or front pay, lost compensation “and damages,” liquidated damages of up to $20,000, and costs and attorneys’ fees, within two years and with notice to the attorney general; non-economic damages are pleaded under “all appropriate relief.”

Labor Law § 740 is the heavier claim. An employer “shall not take any retaliatory action against an employee” because the employee “discloses, or threatens to disclose to a supervisor or to a public body an activity, policy or practice of the employer that the employee reasonably believes is in violation of law, rule or regulation.” On the statute’s text, advertising a job with no range is such a practice, and a written complaint about it to a supervisor is the disclosure. The relief: reinstatement or front pay, lost wages and benefits, costs and attorney’s fees, a civil penalty of up to $10,000, and “punitive damages, if the violation was willful, malicious or wanton,” before a jury and within two years. A disclosure to a public body is protected only after a good faith effort to notify a supervisor, with the exceptions the section states; the written complaint to your employer comes first.

Executive Law § 296(7) adds a retaliation claim, with punitive damages against a private employer, where the differential is because of sex or another Human Rights Law class; public employees look to Civil Service Law § 75-b. Our employer retaliation page covers those claims. Make the complaint in writing and keep a dated copy at home. The retaliation claim, not the range, is where a case that started with a screenshot most often ends up.

What the equal pay claim pays

Labor Law § 198(1-a) sets the price: “the full amount of any underpayment, all reasonable attorney’s fees, prejudgment interest,” liquidated damages of 100 percent unless the employer proves a good faith basis for the underpayment, and “up to three hundred percent” for a willful violation of the equal pay section, with six years to sue and six years of recovery under subdivision 3. The federal Equal Pay Act reaches only sex and only “equal work”; therefore I plead the state claim first.

What to save this week, and what to bring to the first call

Postings come down, so the earliest clock is today.

Save these now, and bring them to the first call:

1. The posting, as a screenshot with the URL and the date visible, and every later posting for the same title.
2. Your offer letter, the pay notice from your hiring and your pay stubs.
3. The names and start dates of the people hired into your title. Do not copy payroll data you can see only because of your job; Labor Law § 194(4)(d) treats that differently.
4. Any written complaint you have made about the posting or your pay, and the reply. From November 8, 2026, add your personnel file under Labor Law § 210-b; our personnel file guide has the request.

Sources

• Labor Law § 194-b
• Labor Law § 194
• Labor Law § 195
• Labor Law § 196-a
• Labor Law § 198
• Labor Law § 215
• Labor Law § 218
• Labor Law § 740
• Executive Law § 296
• Civil Service Law § 75-b
• CPLR 3101
• S9427-A (2022), the bill that added Labor Law § 194-b
• Eisenhauer v Culinary Inst. of Am., 84 F4th 507 (2d Cir 2023)
• 29 USC § 206 (Equal Pay Act)
• 29 USC § 255
• NYC Admin Code § 8-107(32)
• NYC Commission on Human Rights, salary transparency in job advertisements
• EEOC, Lely North America release (September 10, 2026)

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The range on the posting is the employer’s offer; the payroll is the employer’s conduct. The paralegal in Mineola has the posting, her pay stubs and a list of who was hired under it, and the subpoena does the rest. If your file looks like hers, our Long Island wage and hour practice is where it goes.

If you are paid below the range posted for your own job, or you were fired after asking about a missing range, call (516) 750-0595 with the posting screenshot in hand, or request a free case review.