1) New Jersey: As of January 1, 2020, New Jersey minimum wage will be $11/hour. More info here
2) 2020 Taxable Wage Base Increase ( TDI , FLI – workers only): $134,900 More info here
3) Federal: As of January 1, 2020, employees must earn $684/week or $35,568/year ($107,432/year for highly compensated employees) to be exempt from federal overtime laws. Employers in New York must follow the higher New York thresholds. More info here
4) As of January 25, 2020, private employers in New Jersey will no longer be able to require job applicants to provide information about wage and salary history prior to making an employment offer. Assembly Bill 1094 was signed into law by acting Governor Sheila Oliver on July 25, 2019. Last year, Governor Murphy issued an executive order barring New Jersey state entities from similar inquiries.
The new legislation sets different standards for actions taken prior to and following an offer of employment:
Pre-offer: An employer may not consider salary history in determining salary, benefits and other compensation or verify the applicant’s salary history, unless the applicant voluntarily provides the salary history, without any employer prompting or coercion. Further, an employer may not require that the applicant’s salary history satisfy any minimum or maximum criteria or consider an applicant’s refusal to volunteer compensation information in any employment decisions.
Post-offer: Where the offer includes explanation of the overall compensation package, an employer may ask the applicant to provide a written authorization to confirm salary history, including compensation and benefits.
When conducting a background check on a job applicant to verify non-salary related information, the employer must specify that salary history information should not be disclosed and must not retain or consider any such information inadvertently obtained during a background check.
The prohibition on salary history inquiry does not apply to:
applications for internal transfer or promotion;
use of knowledge obtained during prior employment with the same employer;
actions required by federal law or regulation, or
inquiries regarding an applicant’s previous experience with incentive and commission plans (excluding the amount of earnings under those plans) where the employment opening for which the applicant is being considered includes an incentive or commission component. More info here