Salt Lake City

Mayor's Office

Erin Mendenhall | (801) 535-7704

Salt Lake City prioritizes, achieves pay equity

March 24, 2022

Salt Lake City has achieved pay equity following an extensive audit that examined the compensation of approximately 1,000 non-union City employee salaries. 

“Our City values the contributions of all our employees and we have taken on the work of ensuring their pay does not vary based on gender, age or ethnicity,” said Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall. “As Women’s History Month wraps up, Salt Lake City is proud to be a City that believes in pay equality and has been aggressive in achieving it.”

Mayor Mendenhall highlighted the need for private and public entities throughout the city and state to take an objective, close look at their pay structures to ensure fairness. 

“It should go without saying equity in pay is what employers should consider when making their compensation decisions,” said Silvia Castro, Executive Director of Suazo Business Center. “Unfortunately for members of our community whose first language is Spanish, people of color, and women, this is not the case. In Utah, women report wages 30% less than their male counterparts, and Hispanic women report wages 57% lower than white men – the largest gap in the state.”

Beginning in the fall of 2020, Salt Lake City partnered with Payfactors (a global compensation management technology and consulting firm) to complete a comprehensive and proactive review of non-union employee salaries to ensure that pay practices citywide are equitable. Out of the 1,000 employee salaries analyzed, three pay discrepancies were found that the City has already remedied.

“In Salt Lake City, we’re proud to not only be distinguished as Utah’s capital city, but also as the state’s premiere public employer and now also a pay equity leader,” said David Salazar, Compensation Program Manager in the City’s Human Resources Department. “While differences in pay certainly exist between employees, we’re proud of the fact that no statistically significant differences in pay were found among our employees who perform either the same or substantially equal work based on gender, age, or ethnicity.”

The audit report can be viewed here.

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