>My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make.
But have you thought about why you feel this way? I assume you are American, as am I, and so I understand we've been socialized by our culture to feel this way, but it really makes no sense. It's just a way to harm workers by keeping us from seeing when we're being screwed. I'd even go so far as to wager that this entire concept of salary being private was fostered and encouraged by employers for that very reason, because it gives them enormous leverage.
>>But have you thought about why you feel this way?
Yes. I don't want to increase my attractiveness regarding a house robbery, as I live well below my means in a developing neighborhood, amongst other reasons.
I very much understand the concept of leverage and have no problems privately discussing my salary amongst groups that I trust. That doesn't include the entire Internet.
A lawsuit is a bigger risk than a house robbery, IMO. A big reason why people don't get sued is because they aren't a defendant you can get a lot of money out of. Publicly showing off a top 2% salary or asset level will change that.
Like, if you own your house outright, it's often worthwhile to get a HELOC without ever drawing from it. That way, when an attorney tries to figure out if you're worth suing, it doesn't look like you have six figures worth of housing equity to go after.
Its possible the wage increases vastly outweight the insurace you would have to purchase to shield yourself from those consequences. If this information raises your wage 10%, its worth all the rest combined.
I feel like this is kind of silly. Anyone could make a reasonable estimate of your salary based on your job, which is easily discoverable. At least enough to make a decision "should I rob this house." What are we even talking about here?
>>Anyone could make a reasonable estimate of your salary based on your job, which is easily discoverable.
That would require two things, I guess. My name, and the ability to estimate my salary based on the company I run. I am pretty sure even if I told you both you'd miss by a significant amount.
I feel like this is kind of silly. Anyone could make a reasonable estimate of your salary based on your job, which is easily discoverable. At least enough to make a decision "should I rob this house." What are we even talking about here?
>> Yes. I don't want to increase my attractiveness regarding a house robbery, as I live well below my means in a developing neighborhood, amongst other reasons.
The entire point is that it's deeply screwed up for you to need to hide your wealth from your neighbors--or from some set of neighbors but not others--for fear of being robbed.
>> The entire point is that it's deeply screwed up for you to need to hide your wealth from your neighbors--or from some set of neighbors but not others--for fear of being robbed.
That's not the point of the commenter. Secondly, I reject your summary opinion that lacks evidence, but you are welcome to your own feelings.
> The entire point is that it's deeply screwed up for you to need to hide your wealth from your neighbors--or from some set of neighbors but not others--for fear of being robbed.
That's a normative statement, not a positive one. I don't consider it at all screwed up or intrinsically wrong to want to hide my income from my neighbors.
The positive statement is that transparent pricing is going to raise wages. There's little doubt about that. I dont know what magintude it could be, but it might end up being significant.
And if it is significant, it would probably be worth a lot more than the security cost. Its economically senseless to reject a better job position for the fear that someone might notice your increased income and rob you. For the vast majority of people that would be utterly ridicolous.
There is a big portion of people who declare their income publicly and nobody robs them based on this information. Robbers don't work that way, instead they try to find out and target who has unprotected stuff - unlocked home, locked home with owners on vacation (targeted by spotter), open car, car on unguarded parking with known vulnerability etc. etc.
There are tens of thousands very rich people in any country and nobody robs them specifically, despite only several percent of them using active guards or security. They are robbed with the same chance as anyone else.
Living below my means doesn't mean I live like my neighbors. My house is roughly the same as everyone around me. The contents of the house are not (and they are private), and yet I still live well below my means. I have a semi-nice TV, and more importantly, expensive computers like pretty much everyone on HN to do my job.
Their entire point is that publicizing their salary eliminates that privacy by telling people their income. It's a proxy measurement. Even if all they have in the house is a can of beans, publicly making more than their neighbors puts a target on them.
Because robbers tend to rob wealthy people? You get looted or shot more likely, because the robbers don't know this guy lives a humble life. They think this guy must have cash and big TV.
ah yes, the booming American kidnapping business. /s
Seriously though, it's not hard to find targets for this sort of thing by looking at census data and sales records for nice homes, yet it really never happens in the US. WHen was the last time you heard of some random lawyer, ceo, or banker getting kidnapped in the US?
I mean yes, if you can imagine a crime, surely it has happened in a nation of 350 million people. I think my point stands that it's an extremely rare crime, that's hard to commit, harder to cash in on, and harder still to get away with.
How about service providers like car repairmen and house contractors ripping people off? How about gold-diggers pursuing people on false romantic pretenses? How about just people gossiping about you out of envy?
Doesn't that already happen? And what evidence do you have to suggest that known income would make it worse on average? What about cases where a contractor would presume a client is wealthy and try to rip them off, but income data would show that they are actually not as well off as appearances suggest?
But I haven't really bothered to think through any of that, because my point was about kidnapping, which almost never happens in the US. Fewer than 100 people are kidnapped for ransom in the US every year.
I have no idea the mindset of these robbers who seem to be after your paycheck, but I do know that Norway has made salary information public [0], and they have a very low crime rate [1], in fact it's far lower than the U.S. crime rate.
Not really sure how I store my money is relevant; are you insinuating that my neighbors and potential regionally-available criminals can get my demand deposit and IRA balances at will?
EDIT: Ah, I see, you were making a snarky joke about them breaking into my house and stealing stuff. I do have nice things in my house, yes, not cash under my mattress. Just because I live below my means doesn't mean I don't have things I wouldn't want them to steal. Expensive laptops, computing resources for work, and, oh, I don't know, just not a fan of people breaking into my house in general regardless of what I have?
Your neighbors and regional criminals don't need to check your balances to determine if they should rob your house.
They have your address and can quickly get a name from that, and probably find bread crumbs of work history, or that you're a "founder of a sports science" company.
Without even knowing the dollar amount of what you make, there's plenty of info on you that already exists in order to determine if you're a good target.
It doesn't seem like that link controls for the area you live in. I don't think it addresses the concern of being conspicuously wealthier than your neighbors.
You'r right but it does say that if you live well below your means (more in poverty) your chances of being robbed increases. Living among poorer people than he can actually afford does increase the crime around him and probably subjects him to more crime as well (I didn't research this last correlation, just a practical guess. If you can provide research pointing otherwise please do, it will be an interesting point to know).
There is definitely an increased risk of lawsuits or robbery. However it has to be weigh in to the expectancy of a wage increase.
You have already decided to not pay for extra security by being in a poorer neihborhood, so we know safety is negotiable. What is that price to you? What if wage transparency increased your salary 10%?
>>You have already decided to not pay for extra security by being in a poorer neihborhood
I mean, that's not really true. I live in a poor(er) neighborhood but have cameras, an alarm, and home defense weapons. I still don't want my house being broken into.
>>What if wage transparency increased your salary 10%?
As my other comments (or my bio) will illustrate, these examples aren't too good. I am the founder of a small business who makes my wage public to my employees and offered to make their wages public to everyone, which was overwhelmingly voted down, even when I told them about the benefits.
People value their privacy in this country. It would be a mistake to assume that everyone is stupid for doing so.
I dont think they are "stupid" on this, just prejudiced. People dont intelectually know that there is a tax for this privacy.
Its like when people think that the tax incidence is always paid by the one that writes the check to the IRS, even though economists categorically say thats not how it is.
I am confident that if people had the choice at hand of a 10% increase or privacy, the majority would sell their privacy. We are used to sell it for a lot less than that! Even for a virtually free credit score.
Its an implementational challenge. The IRS can always just disclose everything, so the state can nuke this issue. A lighter approach might be making it opt-out in the future when you are employed: a lot of people would not care, and if you have 30% salary transparency, im sure everyone gets most of the benefit. And a private market approach might be for a site like glassdoor to only show real salary data when people send verified wage documentation.
That's a legit concern. Assuming it was possible, if only those in your company could see your salary (and you could see their salaries), would you be in favor of it? I'm also assuming that people in your company don't live in your neighborhood/wouldn't be burglary threats.
I am the founder of a company and I have told my employees my salary, so this isn't really a theoretical question I guess. So, yes. I have no problem disclosing it to those who matter. The reason behind me disclosing it was to show that I was not the highest paid person in the company per salary. I have asked my employees if they want their salaries shared, they have overwhelmingly voted against it, even when I bring up negotiation power.
If your coworkers know it, everybody knows it. Not only are there blabbermouths and gossips everywhere, a coworker may have an axe to grind against you and will surreptitiously leak the information.
We were talking about your friends and family knowing. If you're concerned that your friends and family might rob your home if they knew your salary, you've got larger problems than talking about it.
You're being quite biased towards people with normal family lives. Haven't had deadbeat parents or relatives demand your time or money for free simply because you make more money?
It's hilarious really. A home robber isn't going to download your salary history prior to robbing your house, chances are a lot of the money has gone into big heavy things that they aren't after anyway.
Thieve's are opportunists, they only question they ask is "how easily can I get into that house without getting caught?".
I'm gonna split the difference on that - casual thieves are attracted to stuff, organized thieves do some research. I know about a pattern of robberies of film crews (an industry I used to work in) in my area - these can be profitable because camera gear in particular is quite expensive so a small well-equipped film crew is standing on the street with $10-20k worth of poorly-secured gear, which they probably don't care about losing because it's insured. The modus operandi is consistent enough that I'm fairly sure the thieves are working from city-issued permits.
That would not be the result of publishing salary information. It might be a drop in the bucket for equality at best. And you're speaking to someone who consistently votes and donates to democratic socialist candidates and causes.
That happens now anyway. My branch of my extended family is fairly well-off relative to the other branches, and so my whole life I'm used to my parents being asked by their relatives for money/favors/etc. I'd guarantee they don't give out their actual salary information to their relatives, but it's obvious they're better off.
Knowing or not knowing the specific number doesn't change anything with regard to relatives/friends bothering you for money. People who know you see how you live, where you live, etc and know generally where things stand.
And who doesn't have at least one person like that in their life? Although it definitely wouldn't be limited to just jealous or spiteful family. Public salary information for all people would cause routine problems between friends and family across countless situations and issues over a lifetime. It's a recipe for social disaster.
Tax information, which is both salary and wealth information, is public in Norway since some years now, in electronic form. Media did a bunch of useless posts about celebrities for a while. But apart from that I cannot think of any bad outcomes, certainly not a lot of social disasters.
Norway - Scandinavia in general - has a distinct culture that isn't shared by any other region on earth.
Some things that are perfectly normal in the US or South Korea or Colombia or China or Japan or Zambia or Saudi Arabia or India are without a doubt not considered acceptable or comfortable in Norway. That's how cultures work. What you're describing is an extension of Scandinavia's culture.
The hours worked in Japan or South Korea are culturally acceptable. They would not be in eg France. One could spend an immense amount of time listing the thousands of famous cultural variances between major nations, in regards to things being acceptable in one place but not in another.
Money is also the root of a lot of strife, both within families and beyond, both for people who have money and those that don't. People should have a right to privacy in their financial affairs.
All Americans have a right to privacy. Their reason for privacy doesn't matter and doesn't need to make sense to you.
Compensation is an important conversation to make sure a job is a win/win. I think "What would you like to be paid?" is the most relevant question anyway.
> All Americans have a right to privacy. Their reason for privacy doesn't matter and doesn't need to make sense to you.
Seeing how the right to privacy is not specifically enshrined, I would argue that the reasons for keeping some things private is very much at the heart of the matter. For instance, why does the government not think the benefits of transparency outweigh the disadvantages when it comes to individual reported income, versus say, divorce records (most of which will include income, among many many more private facts said in court).
It's not specifically enshrined because it doesn't need to be. It's implied under the bill of rights: "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ... nor deny any person the equal protection of the laws," (Amendment 14 Section 1).
Again, then it is a worthwhile argument to ask why certain things are enshrined when others are not, if it is indeed possible to base a legal system upon what reasonable minds agree is "implied". For example, most people today would agree that not enslaving humans is implied under the equal protection clause., and yet, we have a specific amendment that had to be ratified, stating "No person can hold another as a slave..."
Like most implied rights, the right to privacy is weak specifically because it is not enshrined. Even the explicitly stated rights have limits, particularly when they butt into the other explicitly stated rights.
When the implied "right to privacy" butts into the 1st Amendment rights of freedom of expression and a free press, on which side do you think the courts will err on, on a consistent basis?
But salaries are not really private. The company has salaries. The state often makes their salaries public.
The IRS has that information. Credit agencies do, etc.
The state has gained an absolute right to know your wage, which one could argue that abolishes the private nature of that information, much like your gender, or your face.
The price of your house is public, the value of your car is public, and most people can roughly guess what your salary is based on your job title, geography and experience level.
It should be private information so long as it's not considerably out of the ordinary (that could easily be a listing requirement established by an exchange). Just as in the case of eg acquisitions, which often will be or must be reported in specific financial terms if they're above a certain size.
If an programmer makes $100,000 in a company where programmers regularly earn that, it should not be public information. If the programmer is earning $2 million, it may be material to the shareholders to know that depending on the size of the company. If the company is Google and the programmer is regarded as extraordinary for some reason, $2 million (vs Google's overall financial picture) isn't a huge sum. If the entire sales of the company are $30 million, it blatantly would be material.
As a shareholder of Google, you do not have access to every individual $100,000 expense they have across a given year (much less an explanation of exactly how it was spent, why it was spent, when it was spent).
The most obvious argument against it, is that people aren't always rational (and are regularly irrational about things like money). I'd argue they frequently aren't able to accurately assess their own financial value (in either direction). It opens a pandora's box within corporations about why X person is worth $Z, while Joe or Jane thinks they should obviously be paid more vs X person. It's not easy to maintain harmony within organizations, that would make it far worse.
What would be the value gained from making all individual employee salaries public (within a public corporation)? It would have to be immense to offset the friction it would cause.
>> I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make.
> But have you thought about why you feel this way?
Not every family is healthy. Some become _decidedly_ unhealthy as soon as money comes into play, and having precise figures available can be really destructive.
It might work better in more egalitarian societies, where the difference in pay is less to begin with (eg Scandinavia). But that's not a road the US (and many other places) is willing to take.
>and having precise figures available can be really destructive.
How? It doesn't change anything with regard to this specific concern about family. They already have an idea about how you live and how much you have from knowing you. They might not have a specific dollar amount, but they'll have a good idea.
A bit of ambiguity about certain things is an important lubricant for almost all non-romantic relationships. My family has a good idea of my salary (as pointed out elsewhere: they can see my house and my car) but I keep the specific number to myself. They're left with just a vague notion rather than anything they could do math with. It's much the same as how they only have a vague notion about what I do in the bathroom. They can use their imagination if they'd like and infer it from various things. But I shut the door so the obvious isn't rendered so plain to see as to become a topic of awkward (and sometimes destructive) conversation.
People aren't rational. "Works a high paying job" feels different from "makes $120000 when even the most highly paid people in my long forgotten rural town make only $35000", and so the response will be different.
That said, I don't think it should be necessary to defend privacy. The idea proposed up-thread is to publish all income data on everybody. Not merely to encourage people to share their income data so they can reduce the information differential with employers, or some central opt-in system to make it easier to compare the numbers. It's about fully _enforced_ transparency.
A proposal for such forced loss of agency needs explanation and must be defensible against scrutiny, not the request to leave people alone just like they're used to.
It's called "privacy". You might want transparency "for the greater good" - I just want to be left alone. I'm not in public position, and I prefer not to disclose information about myself I don't have to disclose, thank you very much.
As my siblings have said, arbitrary people knowing how much money someone has makes higher income and net worth people targets, not to mention unfairly weakens their ability to negotiate practically anything of substantial value.
There are practical considerations beyond weird cultural mores.
One possibility is that extended family may feel that you make more money than a person could possibly need, and ought to share it with them. Easier to avoid this tension if you don’t let on how well you’re doing.
Well, a hard-figure is not really required to cause jealousy and tension. Simply not struggling like the other family member is a signal. Or perhaps a nicer car, latest gadgets/tech, etc. Unless you never enjoy your wealth, people will notice it.
That's more a cause of the culture than the result of it, though. If all salaries were made public tomorrow, yeah, there's going to be the bit of occasional strife, but more than there is now over the long term? Hard to say.
I am very well compensated for bringing a lot of value to my company. The exact details are private between the company, me/my family, and the IRS.
It's not going to benefit me one bit to have my financial arrangements made public. I'm more than happy with the deal I've struck; the company's leverage is not reduced by 3rd parties knowing the numbers.
The more open attitude you described seems to be on an upward trend in the generations born in the ’80s and beyond, but by and large we Americans do not talk money except with the closest family and of course one’s professionals. Even asking how much someone paid for a big-ticket purchase such as a house, car, horse, land, etc. is considered rude. I wouldn’t ask about something as small as a TV. Even verbalizing that someone is better off or little comments like “no big deal because they’re rich” is awkward for at least a couple of reasons: it leaves the “complimented” person feeling a little embarrassed and then also wondering why the other person is thinking about someone else’s finances.
My parents don’t know my income. My siblings don’t. I know a good bit about my mother-in-law’s income and net worth, but it’s because she is single and has asked for specific financial advice. My parents have recently been going through estate planning paperwork, and I suspect we may have discussions about finances in the next few years.
There are of course exceptions. Within niche hobbies, people may be a little more open after they know each other well about how much goods and services cost, but still not about income. A n00b walking up asking those sorts of questions may still get pushback — depends on how he asked.
I’m on the senior management team for a small technology company, but even though we can all see everything, we don’t discuss each other’s compensation directly and sort of pretend not to know.
The stereotype is definitely incorrect. Americans find it incredibly uncomfortable to talk salary. It's considered pretty rude to ask, if someone's going to, it's usually preceded with an apology or a 'if you don't mind me asking'.
No, that's very wrong. Talking about salary or really money in general is rude and kind of unseemly. You generally would never ask someone how much they make in social situations, and only assholes would brag about their salary to others.
It's no good to share your salary. My reasoning goes like this. Information is better used by those in power. If I a share my salary data with other workers, we will avoid some to be screwed. But the employers will be able to screw us all in slight, imperceptible ways.
I can see an argument for forcing public companies to post anonymized data about salaries, perhaps including gender, race and age. Thus ensuring employees or advocates can understand if they are being treated fairly. But, My salary is very private. Exposing it means I have less leverage in some negotiations. Not just wage, but sticking with that example, what if employers created a cabal that said "hey, we're not going to give anyone more than a 10% raise for jumping ship to ensure that theres still some incentive, but less, for 'disloyalty.'" This isn't exactly speculation either, there have been numerous reports of companies creating back door policies not to hire away from each other, which ultimately only hurts the employee.
You make it sound as if Americans were more open about salaries as the rest of the world. My impressions up to now were opposite - Americans super open and others not much.
Definitely not what I see. Talking about salary among Americans is moderately taboo; among the Russians I know, it's a perfectly natural subject of conversation. It always feels weird to me because I mostly grew up in the US, but I definitely think the Russian approach is better: you get a real idea of what different companies and specialities can pay, and you'll know if people are trying to underpay you.
It's generally considered pretty rude to ask about income in America. My wife knows how much I make, of course. I told my parents what the pay was when I got my first career-job almost 10 years ago.
I've got vague impressions about some family members, friends, and coworkers, but nothing solid (unless I wanted to look up the pay scales for the few with government jobs, I guess). I could probably get accurate answers from close friends if I "needed" to, but it would be an uncomfortable conversation.
Scandinavian, apparently. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned that tax filings in Norway are public information, and that they include salary and wealth information.
Maybe American ideas about money work, given that we're the wealthiest[0] and most innovative people in the world. It seems that, barring good evidence to the contrary, the presumption should be in favor of how things are done in America.
[0] Among countries of substantial size. Countries that can have their entire economy based around a few niches aren't useful comparisons.
>My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make.
But have you thought about why you feel this way? I assume you are American, as am I, and so I understand we've been socialized by our culture to feel this way, but it really makes no sense. It's just a way to harm workers by keeping us from seeing when we're being screwed. I'd even go so far as to wager that this entire concept of salary being private was fostered and encouraged by employers for that very reason, because it gives them enormous leverage.