Your Pay Was Set Once, at Hire. Do You Hold the Record of How?

Your raise arrives as a percentage.

A percentage of what?

Of a base. The base was written once, at hire, by someone else. Every increase since is applied to it.

According to Payscale's 2025 Compensation Best Practices Report, 64% of pay increases take effect in the first quarter. 32% take effect in January. The decision precedes the effective date.

The adjustment is arithmetic on a base. It revisits the percentage. Never the base.

See the difference? The raise is the number you see. The base sits underneath it, set on day one.

Translation: the raise conversation adjusts the base. It never asks how the base was set.

The problem

You have your wins. You have your reviews.

You may not have the document that says how your starting number was chosen. Which band. Which step. Which years were credited.

That is The Unpriced Proof Gap at its root. The first number was somebody else's decision. You do not hold the record.

I signed an offer letter once without asking what was credited. If that stings, put it to work: the retrieval takes one sitting.

What has not worked

"My title and years should speak for themselves." Years credited at hire is an employer decision, recorded in the employer's file. Without that record, your years are an assertion.

Salary websites. A range for the title says nothing about where you were placed inside it, or why.

Performance reviews. A review rates a period. It never revisits the base the increase is applied to.

"Switch jobs. It resets your market value." A new employer places you from the same title benchmark and the record you carry out. With no placement file, the reset starts from zero proof.

None of this is a personal failing. Nobody teaches it. Up until now.

The solution: a Starting Placement File

Five records. One sitting. Retrieve, date, file. Nothing computed.

Step 1. The document that states your starting pay. Offer letter, placement letter, or first pay statement. Note its date and where it lives.

Step 2. The range, band, or step schedule for the role at hire. If the historical version is gone, file the current one and label it "current."

Step 3. Your prior experience as you submitted it. The résumé or application you sent, with dates. Plus any verification the employer requested.

Step 4. The written basis for placement. Years credited. Band or step assigned. "Market" or "internal equity" language. An HR email. If none exists, write "none exists" and date that line. You can say it, but unless it is documented, it does not count.

Step 5. Every later pay change. One line each: date, new figure, stated basis, document.

Then mark what is missing and who holds it.

Holding an offer right now? Step 4 becomes one process question to HR before you sign. "Which band or step is this placement, and what was credited toward it?" A record request. Not a money request.

Do not move confidential employer files off employer systems. The file points to the evidence. It need not hold it.

The example: two teachers, one step schedule

Rebecca Cartee-Haring and Dawn Marinello taught English in the Central Bucks School District. The cases: Cartee-Haring v. Central Bucks School District, No. 2:20-cv-01995, and Marinello v. Central Bucks School District, No. 2:21-cv-02587. Both were heard in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

The district pays teachers on a collectively bargained salary schedule of steps. The formula behind a step incorporates experience, seniority, degree, and additional credits. The plaintiffs alleged they were placed at lower steps than their prior teaching experience warranted. Before the second trial, the court ruled that step placement was not a valid theory of liability under the Equal Pay Act. The jury was instructed to consider wages, not step placement.

On May 8, 2025, a unanimous jury returned its verdict. It found the district paid both plaintiffs less than one male teacher for substantially equal work under the Equal Pay Act. It found the district did not prove an affirmative defense. The jury's award: $165,000 in back pay.

The district's own statement says compensation was set lawfully on non-discriminatory factors.

On July 15, 2025, the court decided the post-trial motions. The district appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the plaintiffs cross-appealed. Lead docket Nos. 25-2540 and 25-2541.

On February 5, 2026, the EEOC filed an amicus brief supporting the plaintiffs. On September 24, 2026, the Third Circuit heard oral argument.

The verdict is on appeal. It is undecided. Nothing here is legal advice. It is a documentation lesson.

Translation: the placement question was raised. The court would not hear it as a theory under the Equal Pay Act. The record of how your own placement was set is yours to keep either way.

Your template

STARTING PLACEMENT FILE  |  Dated: ________

Hire date: ________
Starting pay: ________
  Document that states it (type, date, where it lives): ________

Range, band, step schedule, or posted range at hire: ________
  Source, date, historical or current: ________

Prior experience I submitted at hire (years, dates, document): ________

Basis for placement stated in writing: yes / no
  Words used: ________
  Document: ________

Later pay changes (one line each):
  Date: ______  New figure: ______  Stated basis: ______  Document: ______
  Date: ______  New figure: ______  Stated basis: ______  Document: ______

Missing: ________
  Who holds it: ________

What this does not do

This file shows how your base was set and what was credited.

It does not say what the base should have been.

Documentation is not valuation. You can take a box of receipts to your accountant. Without her expertise, you have a box of paper.

Find the document that states your starting pay. Date it. File it this week.

The record is step one. What it is worth is the next step. Decision Tools

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