How is it state overreach but employers aren't engaged in corporate overreach? The state is not there to look after only the interests of the employed, but also of the employees. You don't have a right to know that information, and as an employer you potentially exert significant economic leverage over the potential employee, so the question has great potential to be coercive. It's none of your business how much a potential employee earned in their previous employ. Your only reason for asking is to improve your own negotiating position by making it easier to guess what the employee will settle for.
The only question you should be asking the employee about pay is how much they want in exchange for what you want them to do. As for your first amendment argument, that's total nonsense. You are not engaged in speech to promote your views, nor are you being prevented from expressing your views in any way. If this should be protected speech then so should 'your money or your life' when uttered by a highwayman, who by your logic is merely proposing a bargain that the recipient is free to decline.
> you potentially exert significant economic leverage over the potential employee
The keywords here are 'potentially' and 'significant' -- the difference is that the state has absolute power over you and the fundamental rule of law protects your right to free speech in a public context. Private, consensually entered job offer negotations are a different thing altogether. Certainly, answering a question does not strip you of any of your rights. You can say whatever you want. As I said in my original comment, discriminating based on refusal to produce prior pay stubs is a completely different category and has nothing to do with the first amendment.
> You are not engaged in speech to promote your views, nor are you being prevented from expressing your views in any way. If this should be protected speech then so should 'your money or your life' when uttered by a highwayman, who by your logic is merely proposing a bargain that the recipient is free to decline.
Your hyperbolic example of "your money or your life" is clearly in the 'Fighting words' category, constituting a threat or intimidation, if used as such.
No, the state does not have absolute power over you. I'm not even going to engage with an argument based on a self-evidently false premise.
The first amendment doesn't come with the 'strings attached' that you seem to think. There's a nice outline here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce....
Your hyperbolic example of "your money or your life" is clearly in the 'Fighting words' category, constituting a threat or intimidation, if used as such.
Yes, I'm using a hyperbolic example to expose the flaw in your argument, while saying that there should be restrictions on speech. Trying to invalidate a counter-example directed at your by appealing to my priors is tantamount to an admission that you have no meaningful point.
> Trying to invalidate a counter-example directed at your by appealing to my priors is tantamount to an admission that you have no meaningful point.
No, it's not. I provided you with a list of exceptions to free speech in the United States, and your hyperbolic counter-example is clearly excluded by it, whereas a hiring manager asking a question about past salary is not. Are you able to find a category there that corresponds to simply asking what your previous salary was? If so, please share.
The only question you should be asking the employee about pay is how much they want in exchange for what you want them to do. As for your first amendment argument, that's total nonsense. You are not engaged in speech to promote your views, nor are you being prevented from expressing your views in any way. If this should be protected speech then so should 'your money or your life' when uttered by a highwayman, who by your logic is merely proposing a bargain that the recipient is free to decline.