Alabama has no pay transparency law. Employers in the state are not required to post salary ranges in job listings, share pay scales with current employees, or disclose what coworkers earn. What Alabama does have is the Clarke-Figures Equal Pay Act, codified at Alabama Code Section 25-1-30, which prohibits sex- and race-based pay discrimination and protects job applicants who decline to share their wage history. If you came here looking for a salary disclosure rule, there isn’t one. If you came looking for what pay-related rights you actually have, the rest of this article walks through them.
No Salary Range Requirement in Job Postings
Alabama does not require employers to include a salary range in a job posting, in an application, or at any point before an offer. A growing number of states now mandate this kind of disclosure. Alabama is not one of them. If you are job hunting in Alabama, you will generally need to research market rates on your own, and employers have no obligation under state law to tell you what a position pays until they choose to.
Salary History: What Employers Can and Can’t Do
The Clarke-Figures Act does not ban salary history questions. This is the most frequently mischaracterized part of Alabama’s law. An employer can still ask what you made at your last job. What the employer cannot do is punish you for refusing to answer.
Specifically, an employer cannot refuse to interview, hire, promote, or employ you, or retaliate against you in any other way, because you decline to share your wage history. “Wage history” means the wages paid to you by a current or former employer. You can also voluntarily share your salary history if you want to, for instance to negotiate a higher offer.1Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 25-1-30 – Equal Pay and Employment Requirements
In practice, this puts Alabama in a middle position. The question is allowed; retaliation for a refusal is not.
Equal Pay for Equal Work Under the Clarke-Figures Act
The substantive protection in Alabama law is the equal pay rule. An employer cannot pay any employee less than what it pays employees of a different sex or race for equal work at the same workplace. To count as “equal work,” the jobs must require the same skill, effort, education, experience, and responsibility, performed under similar working conditions.1Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 25-1-30 – Equal Pay and Employment Requirements
The law applies to private employers, the state government, and its political subdivisions, including public bodies. There is no minimum employee count, so even a very small employer is covered.
The scope is narrower than some people expect. The Clarke-Figures Act reaches pay gaps tied to sex or race. It does not reach pay disparities based on age, disability, religion, or other protected characteristics. Those fall under federal statutes like Title VII or the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
When a Pay Gap Is Legal
Not every pay difference between employees of different sexes or races violates the law. The Clarke-Figures Act allows four justifications for unequal pay on otherwise equal work:
- A seniority system, where longer-tenured employees earn more.
- A merit system that rewards individual job performance.
- A system tying earnings to the quantity or quality of production.
- Any factor other than sex or race, such as a relevant certification, a geographic pay adjustment, or a shift differential.
These defenses only work if the employer can point to a real, functioning system or a legitimate factor. A loose claim that one employee “negotiated better” may not survive scrutiny if the underlying reason for the gap traces back to sex or race. If you bring a claim, you carry the initial burden of showing the pay difference does not fall into one of these permitted categories.1Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 25-1-30 – Equal Pay and Employment Requirements
Talking About Pay With Coworkers
The Clarke-Figures Act itself does not protect employees who discuss their pay with coworkers. Some state equal pay laws include that protection. Alabama’s does not.
Most private-sector employees in Alabama are still protected, but through federal law. The National Labor Relations Act protects the right of employees to discuss pay and other working conditions with each other as “concerted activity.”2U.S. Department of Labor. Asking About, Discussing, or Disclosing Pay A company policy that forbids wage discussions is generally unenforceable under federal labor law. The NLRA covers most private-sector workers but does not cover government employees, agricultural laborers, independent contractors, or supervisors.
If you are disciplined or fired for talking about pay with a coworker, the remedy runs through the National Labor Relations Board, not through a Clarke-Figures claim in state court. Knowing which law protects you determines where you file.
Recordkeeping Employers Must Maintain
Rather than write its own recordkeeping rules, the Clarke-Figures Act adopts the federal ones. Every employer must follow the U.S. Department of Labor recordkeeping rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act, found at 29 C.F.R. Part 516.1Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 25-1-30 – Equal Pay and Employment Requirements
Under those federal rules, employers must keep payroll records for at least three years from the last date of entry.3eCFR. 29 CFR Part 516 – Records to Be Kept by Employers Payroll records include employee names, addresses, hours worked, wage rates, and total earnings. Supplementary records like time cards and wage rate tables must be kept for at least two years. If you suspect a pay disparity, those records are the direct evidence that would compare what different employees were paid for similar work. Evidence lost because an employer failed to comply with retention rules can work in the employee’s favor during litigation.
How to File a Claim and What You Can Recover
A Clarke-Figures claim goes straight to court. You file a civil action in an Alabama court; there is no requirement to go through a state administrative agency first. The suit must be filed within two years of the discriminatory act that caused the pay disparity.1Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 25-1-30 – Equal Pay and Employment Requirements Missing that deadline almost certainly ends the claim.
If you win, the employer is liable for the full amount of wages you were underpaid plus interest on those wages.1Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 25-1-30 – Equal Pay and Employment Requirements The statute does not provide liquidated damages (the “double back pay” available under the federal Equal Pay Act) or punitive damages. The remedy restores what you should have earned, and no more.
If you recover under Clarke-Figures and also pursue a federal claim for the same violation, you must return the lesser of the two awards. The law explicitly bars double recovery, so you can pursue both avenues but will not collect twice for the same lost wages.1Alabama Legislature. Alabama Code 25-1-30 – Equal Pay and Employment Requirements
State Law vs. Federal Law
Clarke-Figures overlaps with two federal statutes: the federal Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The federal Equal Pay Act covers sex-based pay discrimination for substantially equal work and offers liquidated damages that can double the back pay award. Clarke-Figures goes further in one respect by also covering race-based pay discrimination, which the federal Equal Pay Act does not address directly.
Under federal law, you can file an Equal Pay Act lawsuit directly in court without first filing a charge with the EEOC.4U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Filing a Charge of Discrimination Title VII claims require an EEOC charge first. Clarke-Figures follows the same direct-to-court model as the federal Equal Pay Act, with no administrative prerequisite.
Many employees file under both state and federal law at once. The federal Equal Pay Act’s liquidated damages are the main reason to include a federal sex-based claim. For race-based pay discrimination, Clarke-Figures fills a gap the federal Equal Pay Act does not cover.