Court: Employers can pay women less based on past salaries

[Yupster]

20. I know a company that kind of does this

It's a commission sales job where the new employee is unlikely to make money for the company for up to five years. The company is willing to subsidize the new employee as long as it sees progress being made toward profitability.

When it hires a new person it offers them a guaranteed pay based on a percentage of what they were making at their previous job. Therefore, two new employees can make significantly different starting pays.

The theory behind it is if they don't offer close to what they were making they won't take the job. If you offer more than what they were making before, they won't work as hard as they can to get their business off to a strong start.

IT's a job that requires very hard work and long hours the first few years getting started, but has the potential to make very large incomes.

I'm sure if it was analyzed, it would show that starting male workers were offered more than starting female workers just because the offers were based on their previous salary histories.