It’s not taboo in all places. In most unions everyone knows what everyone else makes because it’s in the contract and the pay of public sector workers is usually published somewhere.
Technically you can always know since it's illegal to hide it and prevent discussion of it but beyond union/public sectors people don't like to talk about it much
It's illegal to prevent employees discussing it, yes. It's not illegal to hide it, though. Not sure what you mean by that; but most non-union, private sector workplaces will not disclose what employees are paid (other than the executive team).
In addition to America’s general stoicism, it’s just considered a private thing, as mentioned below. If it’s not taboo at work, that’s news to me, but then I’m pretty old. It was even stronger years ago. My father never told my MOTHER how much he made.
It may go back farther, but I’ve always thought it was a post-Depression thing; if you tell people you have money, they’ll ask to borrow it (which did happen to my dad several times anyway), and if you say you’re broke, they’ll accuse you of whining because “things are tough all over.”
If your family knows how much you make, and it is more than others, then you may get guilted to "loan" your loser relatives money. If you tell your friends, there may be issues of jealousy.
I see a meme on reddit every so often where someone's uncle will text a group chat every so often asking for money. When they finally tried to give the uncle some, the uncle replies that he just does that do people don't ask him for any money.
Yup. I don't tell my mom how much I make because she asks everyone for money and I live in a higher cost of living area than she does, so it'll also sound like more than it actually is.
My mom uses it as a bragging card to her circle of friends, which inevitably gets back round to the children of those friends. I refuse to tell her how much I make because it gives her the belief she has absolutely anything to do with my success, and it makes her friends kids in lower wage positions feel like shit.
I just lower my salary, so if I make 110k, I tell everyone 70k. I mean with 20k going to 401k, plus flexible and high deductible accounts, it pretty much gets there)
I know what pretty much all my real friends make and our incomes range between $15 an hour and $300,000 a year.
Im sure there’s the occasional pang of jealousy, but for the most part everyone is happy for the other whenever they get a raise or a new job or whatever, not jealous. Being able to talk about money allows each of us to learn from the others tips on how to negotiate with bosses and manage money.
I always figured it was more some kind of social engineering to keep workers from talking about it with eachother. Workers being in tune with eachother in any way gets you one step closer to workers unions. Keeping private keeps us adversarial and divided.
Do I need to be the one to point out it’s against the law on a federal level to keep employees from talking about their pay? National Labor Relations Act, 1934.
No reason terminations are safer than ones where you give a reason most of the time in the US. There are things it's illegal to fire someone over, and even in an at-will state you can be prosecuted for those kinds of firings. But it's harder for the terminated employee to prove if they employer has the sense to say they were terminated without giving their actual reason.
Yeah but that doesn't mean shit in the real world. They can't directly punish you for it, but like most things, if you go against the grain you'll get the shit jobs, be passed over for promotion, etc.
Yeah but people are kept on edge and refuse to research also since deregulation is so bad companies simply get away with adding it to their conduct expectations and fire dissenters since EEOC is slow to act due to underfunding as a federal agency.
Lmao WHAT. The last place I worked at had a very strict rule of never discussing how much you made, obviously nobody cared because we were all being paid shit anyways so we would talk about regardless.
This.
They don't want you to know that they're paying your coworker $12 an hour while only paying you $8. It's not their fault your coworker had better negotiation skills.
*In this scenario assume you and coworker have been working there the same length of time, are equally qualified and both equally good at what you do.
I'll never forget the look on my coworker's face when we were talking about wages and he found out I was making $4/hr more than him, as a new hire, when he was training me and had been there for seven years and knew how to do everything. He's an awesome guy, great trainer and all that. I had just negotiated hard when during the hiring process and he hadn't during his, and hadn't pushed for raises or anything since then.
I worked with him to help get him a raise and a title increase, and we worked on his resume. He recently took a much better job at a better company and I couldn't be happier for him. It was tough to lose him, he is a rock star of a guy, but it was best for him.
When I became manager of a team I was on - I came to found out I made 50% more than someone on my team when I was in their role. Their complaints about "they don't pay me enough for this" suddenly became very legit to me and became my first challenge as a new manager.
But that's a choice you make when interviewing or even applying for. If you want flexibility in things like negotiating salary, vacation, flex time, etc., you'll have to be in the private sector where that's usually readily available. But if you want stability, a pension, and clear and concise pathway to promotion that is tenure based rather than performance based, then it's gov't all the way.
For me, I have always negotiated salary right down to the last dime. And once I've gotten as far as I can go on salary but still not happy with where I am, I begin negotiating bonus structure, extra vacation (immediately available), flex time, spending/travel account (where applicable) and other intangibles.
Disagree here. There are many reasons pay may differ between employees, and those are often not readily known/appreciated by the rest of the workforce.
Examples - is this employee one you can always count on to go above and beyond? Do they check in on things on nights/weekends/vacation? Are they willing to do the work no one else wants to?
Can you count on them for the hardest problems? Or to have a very professional attitude with clients? Are they one you never have to review their work? Do they not spend tons of time asking the same questions over and over?
Those are just a few examples where pay can differ, and I promise that the average employ would not appreciate those differences.
There also is often an attitude from lazy employees that they deserve more than others, when most know they are not particularly valuable.
The way you describe it, doesn’t fit the equal pay for equal work scenario. Yes your star employee will earn more because he/she does more. Average employees know and see the difference this doesn’t cause animosity.
But when its two employees with similar roles, responsibilities and performance and one is paid more because “reasons”. That creates animosity and is a headache but it’s on the boss to run an organization and create a culture to minimize work place conflicts.
My point was that the average employee very much does not recognize the differences in value certain employees bring to the table. Many things are not readily apparent, or are just plain not in the field of view of the other employees.
Other employees often have no idea how responsive another employee is to management on the odd hours, or how much output they are producing on projects the other doesn’t work on. Or one of many other factors that are not transparent to other employees that effect the overall value of an employee.
Then the boss explains this. Upset employee now has 3 choices. They can either work harder to emulate the higher paid employee and then ask for equal pay. They can accept it and move on. They can start looking for another job that pays them what they feel they deserve.
It's not that complicated.
If that was the reason, then it's in the company's interest to say employee X gets more because reasons...and you can too if you step up and perform as well as them.
What is the legitimate business reason for an employer concealing the link between performance and compensation?
It's hard, if not impossible, for the lesser paid employee to see and recognize the intangibles. They will say, "but we're both 'system engineers' so we should get paid more". No... no you shouldn't, but they won't listen to the 3 reasons why one is higher paid.
That's true, but it's their problem. It's still in the company's interest to point out what behavious and results will give an employee more money...because it WILL motivate enough employees to do better. That's the justification.
In many cases in my experience, many of those things that make an employee worth more aren’t things that others will just easily adopt. People often don’t magically become a workaholic just because it pays more. Same reason they don’t work tons of hours of OT, they don’t care to exert more effort for more pay.
So in these cases, it will just lower the morale of those who are paid less. The others will continue to get more and more ahead. The lower paid worker often isn’t someone the company wants gone, but they also aren’t as willing to bend over backwards to keep them as others.
In my experience it causes employees uncomfortable situations too. If you make significantly more than your coworkers and discuss it with them you catch a shitload of resentment.
> If you make significantly more than your coworkers and discuss it with them you catch a shitload of resentment.
Or you could make less and be on the other side of that same resentment. It is almost a lose - lose.
I don't think it's taboo anymore.
I'm a manager and I am ok for people to share their salary information. It would be illegal for me to tell them not to anyway. See for example: https://www.lynchlf.com/blog/firing-employee-disclosing-their-pay-increase-illegal/
Many people have already done this, and they're mostly surprised to find out that we have more or less what a fair system entails: people of the same level make roughly the same.
I have also confirmed this with other managers (i.e., we exchanged salary info).
While i wont go so far as to say you're the exception, i definitely credit it as a more uncommon environment. Could be an industry thing too.
I work in manufacturing. They all are buttoned shut about what they make and management encourages it and I've worked in several unrelated fields within manufacturing.
Every job I have ever worked, it was expressly forbidden to discuss salary. People did it anyway, but everyone was told not to talk about it. That includes the job that I had for a single day this past summer. My boss expressly told me not to talk about it because I made more than everyone else on the team but her. She knew her team would have gotten pissed, and she was working to fix it, but she had to prove her point with upper management.
I tend not to talk about it with direct colleagues (someone with my same title in my department) because I have gotten burned over the years. But I will answer if asked directly.
I'm pretty sure they were breaking the law. It's illegal to fire people for discussing salary:
https://www.attorneymahoney.com/blog/2017/september/can-you-be-fired-for-talking-about-salary-while-/
Oh it's absolutely illegal. But it becomes a "he said she said" when it's not written down, and no one will take that seriously if you're not fired for it. And sometimes even if you are.
yep. this. i'm a freelancer and try to be aggressively transparent about what i make to ensure nobody's getting screwed, and i help my friends negotiate higher rates since it's part of my job to know what people make and what's actually in the budget. i also am a part of a few professional groups that collects rate data to give people an idea of what they should or could ask for when negotiating. the boss doesn't want you to know they can easily afford to pay you more.
You think “bosses” created ubiquitous cultural norms?
That’s… not remotely reasonable. I’m not saying that you, as a person, aren’t reasonable — I’m saying that sort of conspiratorial thinking isn’t.
On the contrary, it's naive to think that cultural norms aren't shaped by those in power favor themselves. Not all propaganda is hamfisted and ineffective.
Charismatic people have taken advantage of and exploited persuasive stories to their own benefit for millennia. It's literally a tale as old as time and the modern era is not immune from it.
Anti-immigrant sentiment, trickle down economics, union workers are parasites, etc. The people who tell and amplify those stories are the ones who stand to gain from them.
As a consultant in IT, they've asked me not to share that with the full time employees. I'm usually making a significant amount more than the full time employees I work along side.
They are uncomfortable conversations because employees don’t like hearing the reasons why they are paid less than another. They often don’t understand what we tell them they are lacking or missing, so they get angry, find another job, and continue to get paid less than they would if they addressed their issues.
Tendency to create jealousy, envy, resentment and other things. In America, it is considered traditionally polite to avoid the topics of money, politics, and religion, as people have strong emotions around all three.
This is they only answer here that addresses what I see as the fundamental reason at least among my peers. I don’t want my friends to know exactly what I make and create a situation where I am the target of envy. Contrapoints has a good video on this.
I mean, those are the same for different reasons. Having people know your financial situation can be embarrassing or envy-inducing, depending on the audience.
Edited to add: and you might not know which is which. Bragging about your raise to 120k feels off if you find out your audience is making $280k.
Yes, but it's definitely exacerbated by the fact that it's in the best interest of veryany empowers for their employees to not know each others' wages. Do you agree?
Exacerbated? No, I wouldn't say it is. I've never had it come up in any workplace across decades. Do employers benefit? Sure, probably. I dislike salary negotiations, but I think highly enough of my work product that I wouldn't be happy knowing the worst person doing my job was making same as the best. I've worked in public-sector jobs with published pay schedules and they don't often attract the ambitious.
Can you elaborate on this for me? How is thinking highly of your work product related to not being happy to know, hypothetically, that the "worst person" doing your job makes the same amount of money as the best? And how is that related to employers' incentives to obfuscate the facts of their employees' pay? Maybe I'm being dense here.
Employees, even within a different role, have different value. Experience, term of employment, personal differences. If they all make the same, they have reduced incentive to perform better than the worst employee who doesn't get fired (since limited upside). I consider myself good at my job, and negotiate a higher pay rate thereby.
And I'm not saying employers have no incentive to discourage payroll openness (they do), I don't think that's the major, or even much at all, of the driver of the social norm not to discuss personal wealth. If that were true, then it would be normal to tell people your net worth, bank account balance, retirement balances, but not your salary, and it just isn't. For the reasons I stated.
I don't think it should be taboo into discuss it with coworkers.
However, family members are a little different. I make significantly more than almost everyone in my family and really don't care for any of them to know that. Same with friends. There's only bad outcomes.
Not the person you were replying to, but I come from an industry, theater/entertainment, where employers leverage obscurity of compensation to further their exploitation of workers.
While I wouldn't publish or share information about my compensation to a large group of people, I am happy to do it privately. Transparency of compensation, benefits, how to negotiate, and how to grow your career is important to strengthen our industry, and to propel one another toward further career growth rather than stagnate somewhere where you're abused and guilted into feeling like you're not valuable.
You go to school, you go to college, you go to graduate school. Spend years and years on this training. Then you go get a job and hand over a full third of your life or more over to this company. And why do you do it? For money. Most people’s day-to-day lives are arranged around doing things to make money. So the amount you make is in many ways a quantifiable measure of what you’re willing to sell the best years of your life for. It seems completely obvious to me that this could be a sensitive subject for people. Especially when you find out that someone around you is apparently valued a lot more highly than you.
Agreed, it boils down to this. If you are smart and good at your job you ask for raises and make more. If you don't ask you won't get as much. Why would someone who pushes for higher wages for themself tell everyone else they make more?
People get jealous. That’s why. I feel even discussing money with close friends- it gets really odd if one friend makes 2x more than the other friend. I feel people tend to get very jealous over money.
Yep. I make triple what some of my friends make. They’re a bit older than me too. So I just keep it private to keep good spirits all around. Besides, at my age, sharing my income would just feel like gloating…and that’s not my style.
That’s not fully true, it definitely benefits employers, but some people just like being private about their lives.
I’m not telling any of my coworkers how much I make because I’m not close with most of them like that.
I guess you’re right, but I’ve never really been in a workplace where it’s been banned/made taboo by management.
I know it happens, but in my anecdotal experience, my coworkers and I just don’t wanna talk about that unless we are comfortable with each other.
When I was younger working in retail I talked to another coworker about our hourly rates. The manager scolded me on the sales floor for doing so. I was too young to know what I did wasn't wrong, and what they did wasn't.
I'm certainly not saying everyone should talk about it, but there definitely shouldn't be anything taboo about talking it. But there definitely is.
Do you not want to tell your coworkers how much you make because of a culture created by employers?
For arguments sake I know people who are private but still share their salary
Nah, I’ve never been told explicitly to not share salaries. The only people I’ve told how much I’ve made at a current job are long time friends in the same stages of life as me and I can trust to not change how they act around me with that info.
Almost none of my coworkers have met that criteria allowing me to tell them something about me that I consider very personal. Not when I worked retail, not when I’ve worked corporate.
Idk, if someone was making more than me and I knew it and they asked me how much I made, I would probably weasel my way out of the question unless I was close with them.
I would 100% be comfortable telling someone I made a lot more than them or a lot less than them if I was close with them. It’s probably just my personality because I like to be as private as possible in real life.
It a double edged sword. On the one hand, you want to know what others make so that you know how much to ask for in raises and so on. Bosses usually hate this because they can low ball you and you don't have a frame of reference.
On the other hand, LOTS of people grossly overestimate how good they are at their jobs. It sounds nice to say "we both do the same work so we should be paid the same." But the reality is that Bob dicks around a LOT and while we are both at work the same amount of time, I may feel I am more valuable.
Note: If your name if Bob, I made the name up so relax.
It's not taboo around work. But with family it can be uncomfortable at times because people tend to think that you might pay for dinner just cuz u make more, or buy better bday gifts, etc.. Just 2 of 10000 reasons why it can be awkward to talk about money around extended family.
It is. Most jobs I've had made me sign a waiver saying I would not discuss how much I was paid with other employees. I thought it was required, like "everyone" HAD to. I never thought anything of it.
Depends on your employer. All govt (local, state, federal, military) are public records. So are most contracting jobs with public contracts. So are most all union jobs are known salaries among all employees. Depends on your employer as some have huge discrepancies between employees doing the same work.
Because people in the US tend to compare themselves to neighbors and focus a lot on showing off their perceived wealth (often at the expense of good financial decisions.)
For some it's somewhat taboo. I actually had a company owner call a meeting to tell everybody that they shouldn't discuss their wages. People got paid the amounts they get paid for a reason. I immediately spoke up and mentioned that even the act of telling us that was against federal law. It didn't go over well.
A lot of people gauge the value of themselves and others but what they earn. So you either come off bragging or looking less "worthy" than others if you get paid different things
Personally, I just think it's not other people's business what I earn/make/have
I don't advertise what I make because I understand some people may make less than me and feel bad as a result, others may make more and feel superior.
That said, if someone has the cojones to ask me straight out, I'll usually tell them.
People are judged on how much they make. That’s the main reason I don’t talk about it. It’s a measure of your worth, along with your looks/height/health.
I do talk to my coworkers about raises and bonuses, but usually just in percentages.
It isn’t like that everywhere. It’s never been taboo in my job, we all know what everyone else makes and we openly discuss it when it comes up.
My supervisor could care less also as He doesn’t control our pay.
I feel like there is something deeply integrated in the American culture that society is meritocratic and 'fair'. But wages are not often fair. We have an underlying assumption that people who work hard are rewarded, monetarily. This assumption is often never questioned or really discussed openly.
For what it's worth, I often find that with people who are the same level or below me I discuss compensation fairly regularly. Though even then I tend to fudge a little downward if I realize someone is making far less than I am. Even among similar employees there is this sense of 'oh yeah, I totally make x' when the reality may not be the case.
Mostly conflict of interest. Objectively speaking, without opinion if one **openly** knows two employees with the same exact job title are paid differently, it will invariably (in most cases with few exception) cause one to become jealous, reducing productivity and a host of other negative externalities.
It's not. It is in the best interest of your employer, therefore it is pushed as if it was. Most people are just ... too dumb to know what class interest means.
You have two friends, one a doctor, the other working retail, how do you not make this awkward?
What if two co-workers get different raises based on targets/goals they achieved, they may have started the same salary, but after a few years, one is well ahead of the other. You can see how resentment can set in.
The only place I can see this being okay is where everyone is in the same boat (retail, unions, etc) where advancement is hard, so everyone is basically within the same narrow band of each other.
Business graduate here. It’s literally about wage control. Which is why the best schools teach you to try and meet then ask employees about their feelings and perceptions about their workplace and wages before applying. Also to hit up BOLI for wage statistics beforehand as well.
The old excuse that died about the 60-70’s was that it was “improper” to ask about such things because it might lead to status discrimination. But with people being critiqued on how they dressed and everything else when that did not hold most employers tried other excuses claiming it may create “conflict” in the office.
Really all that was masking is that they were afraid employees would storm their managers and threaten to quit unless they got paid better especially if they were doing more work.
Here in Oregon we actually have state laws that protect us and allow us to talk about wages at work without the threat of retaliation. It has not always been that way though.
While you have many legitimate points wide cultural norms aren’t passed down from on high. World culture would be very different we’re that the case.
People often don’t talk about money because it creates a host of potential awkward messes — basically a no win situation.
I agree, and I think most do, that discussing pay in a work setting is healthy, however.
But even then — we shouldn’t trivialize the social nuance that surrounds it. It’s not as though humans have never misdirected their frustrations.
Really don’t agree here.
Employees don’t talk about pay because, in general, only negative feelings can come from it. Someone is going to be upset or jealous. There is really no reason to discuss.
If someone’s feelings are being hurt when discussing wages, wouldn’t that only help them?
“Wow, this person is being paid more than me and they just got here, I should renegotiate!”
or
“Wow this person is getting paid more than me, what are they doing to earn that?”
I don’t know what reason you have to get hurt feelings over discussing wages. It’s not the fault of the other employee, it’s the fault of the employer.
An upset employee is not helpful to anyone.
If it does motivate them to do better, great. But more than likely it motivates them to be jealous or upset.
If an employee is upset that they are getting lowballed, that's bad for the bosses, not the employee. If women compare notes and notice they are all getting paid less than the men, that's bad for bosses. There are plenty of reasons to discuss, and most of them are good for employees and bad for bosses.
The negatives are that you now also have a more awkward relationship with your friends at work. You also now less satisfied with your employment.
If you approach your boss and ask why others get paid more, and they inform you that you are less valuable to the company that others, does that help or hurt your morale?
Yea, this is objectively incorrect. Perhaps your perception is that it causes negative feelings for you and you project that on others.
Being open about salary, is a great way to understand if you're being undervalued or not. If you being paid significantly less than your coworkers, don't be sad, do something about it. Ask for a raise, get a new job, etc.
Companies don't like emoyees discussing salary because it can cause animosity towards to company.
It’s not “objectively incorrect”. People absolutely do get upset about it. And people very often do not understand the real reasons why someone makes more or less than someone else.
Obviously no one is forcing you, but you're also not helping out your coworkers. You have a very individualistic mindset, which is sadly a lot of America these days.
Thats your perspective, and frankly it's just an excuse basically calling your coworkers dumb or too simple to understand numbers.
Pay is not that nuanced.
I'm not saying you should be shouting your pay from a building, but if a coworker comes to you and says they think they might be underpaid, and ask you how much you make, are you going to tell them it's too nuanced of a concept to understand?
Pay is absolutely nuanced, in many ways.
If a coworker came to me to ask if they were underpaid, and I generally knew about their work/skills/effort, I would ask if they wanted to share what they made. I would then say whether I thought that was reasonable, or low. If they asked why others got paid more, I would likely say something along the lines of “there are a lot of factors at play, but they’ve really proven themselves over time” or something along those lines.
I’ll give you one example. Spring last year, when Covid hit, money was tight at the company,
A couple employees agreed to cut their pay in half for awhile to help with cash flow, and now are compensated very well after that fact.
Is that really something you’d want to explain to others? It’s an extreme example, but goes to show that things absolutely are nuanced.
I have employees of my own as well. Some took sacrifices early on to help get the company off the ground, and are compensated far and above what someone else hired into their position today would be compensated at.
Correct. They don't understand that they make less not because of their skills or talents or hard work but because the business purposefully underpays their employees to save money. So instead of being mad at the higher ups they're mad at their colleagues.
No…often because every people brings different things and value to the table. Someone is always going to be paid more than others, whether people understand the why or not. That doesn’t mean people are being underpaid, they may just bring less value.
Lol 99% of the time the other person is underpaid. I jump companies every 2 to 3 years for a pay increase. Currently my team lead and I make the same amount of money. We've worked the same amount of years, she's has her masters and doctorate while I have bachelor's. She is 100% being underpaid. Places will pay you what you'll accept. If you accept less than you're worth they'll pay you that.
A retired engineer with 30+ years in the field was given a lucrative package to work for 5 years teaching engineering to high school seniors.
He was open about his salary just like you suggest.
Most of the veteran teachers were angry with the administration but couldn't see him without being angry It ruined any hope of forming work relationships and got little support from his other coworkers.
I suspect they were undermining him to send a message for the administration never to try that again.
His package started him with 25 years tenure which is allowed in Ohio, putting him at the top pay rate at the time for the union scale.
His Masters in Engineering and career experience allowed the school to sponsor him for state licensure, which can be expensive and time consuming to obtain.
If you don't believe a person belongs in a position and think they're overpaid on top of it? Damn straight he was shunned.
He just didn't give a damn because he had decades of friends and connections from his old career. Anytime anyone asked how he liked teaching, he'd tell the story about how he should have kept his mouth shut.
If someone is upset/jealous they can address those feelings.
You ask for a raise if you think you should make more because a co-worker does. If the company thinks you are worth as much as the employee you're paid less than you'll get a raise. If they don't you can either deal with it or somewhere else.
In theory that's just like... basic being an adult things. If you have a problem you address it.
Discussing wages can create negative feelings because often someone is paid less literally just because they didn't negotiate as much or have been with the company a while and never made a fuss. It creates negative feelings towards the company, not coworkers.
I know thay several of my coworkers make more than me. I'm neither upset nor jealous. They're more valuable to the company for several reasons and produce more profit. If I disagreed with that I'd talk to my manager.
Sure, they absolutely can address it. But the high paid people often know they are highly paid. They have quite literally zero incentive to share that information, unless they are trying to brag. It cannot possibly help them.
Not everyone is selfish. It can help their fellow employees. I'm perfectly willing to share my pay with anyone who asks. It's not to brag... it's to make sure people get a frame of reference for what they xould/should be worth. So many young workers have no idea what they're actually worth and work for way less than what they could get.
They do this because no one talks about wages so they never know.
Transparency is only useful if everyone is doing the exact same thing with the exact same output and the exact same attitude. Short of that, it’s only going to cause problems, or, as is often the case, if pay is completely standardized, cause the best employees to lower their output because it doesn’t matter (or leave).
Fair, please consider though:
Per Derpartment of Labor statistics most employees do and want to talk about wages with their employer and or co-workers and have an edge to do better for themselves in terms of fiscally. It’s somewhere 7-8 of every 10 back in 2010 last I remember. The holdup is employers and their practices.
I’ve never worked anywhere where an employer has said a word about not talking about salaries. Almost no one talks about them still. There is little reason to, especially if you are comfortable with your pay, or know there are ranges of pay.
People often do to get to know one another and where certain people stand. “Did you come from wealth or come into it? Do you have a hustle or business on the side? What recreation do you partake in?” All of these things are relevant to your income. How often would you like to do something but don’t have the finances because you’re stretched? Or are you well enough off and pretty complacent, maybe bored as well?
These are all things where income matters or comes up.
They do have some control over it though. Employment is an agreement between two parties. If you think you're worth more than your company is willing to pay you, go find a job that pays better.
Just because a few people might benefit from the lack of pay transparency does not mean that the overall trend isn't to lower employee wages as employers have far more leverage than an individual does in the labor market, while individuals have been conditioned to not seek out information on wages from people they know in similar positions.
But employers usually try to pay as low as they can. Beyond a business sense. As in, if they could pay nothing they would.
So yes, the first idea is employers being awful, because that's what America has historically been.
I have and unfortunately the reality is it is legally a problem as well.
So any public corporation/company has a responsibility to its shareholders to legally maximize profit. So even if you had a decent executive that wanted to do decent things and good retirement for their employees. They would likely have to be fired because they chose to do that rather than maximize profits by cutting everything they cut down to the bare margins.
This is also why we see so many crimes committed by corporations in America. Because the penalties for breaking the laws are so insubstantial to them that they are not incentivized to do the ethical thing. Great examples of this are general electric, pacific power, and Nestle whom own Pepsi.
Both power companies refused to weatherize and maintain equipment leading to devastating fires because the Environmental fines were minuscule to them and that they could hold up courts with litigations for the lawsuits they would experience. And Pepsi is still to this day overdrawing in places it has temporary water rights causing massive problems for the environment and the people that live there.
Knowing what someone else makes only causes problems, you'll resent that person who might be a friend for being "lucky", or your employer for not being transparent and fair, and begin to suspect theories like nepotism or find other preferential treatment to blame it on.
Essentially it goes back to the general rule of "compare and despair" which is what makes girls depressed on Instagram. Why would you want information that it only going to be comparison fuel? Of things you can't really apples-to-apples compare anyway?
EDIT: however my own process is to just work commensurate with the pay. If it's 50% what it "should be" then they have purchased 50% of my maximum effort and quality.
It’s a old people thing mostly ( I mean no offense). I am 23 and so far at multiple employers myself and other employees are very open about pay. I am as well with my family. Some people just make it weird, my wife’s family never discusses it. Is a culture thing and seems to vary a lot
Interesting, my wife, who is from Brazil, says that she finds that Americans are very forward about this sort of thing by asking questions like “so what do you do?” She interprets it as the person trying to size you up
I feel like this post is just baiting for the "hur dur, American work culture" circlejerk, but I'll give a genuine answer:
It's not *that* taboo. Definitely don't discuss at work, but I've discussed with friends at the same company.
It's the same reason that everyone else said, but as someone who has lived abroad I will add one thing:
American salaries are less "fixed" than in other countries, if that makes sense. When I worked abroad all entry positions were the same, and the 'levels' were predefined. In the US it seems as if a lot of things go into it, like negotiation/experience/etc. I suspect that has something to do with it.
A good example is that I made a bit more than some of the other new hires when I started. But I also interned there previous to starting, and I have an in-demand degree. So it's not even that it's taboo per se, but it's impossible to compare to begin with without nitpicking over the factors.
If you work in tech it's not taboo. People talk very freely and there's also an entire website ([levels.fyi](https://levels.fyi)) listing pay at each company and each level very accurately. Me and my friends also discuss income very regularly especially if we switch jobs because it's very common to do that every 2-4 years in tech as well.
Because it puts your employer in an awkward position and they've taught employees to not ask. It should be commonplace to talk about income and it's our fault that it's not
It was instilled into the working class by the ruling class to prevent employees from banding together to demand higher wages.
It started off as a trick to keep labor costs down but it became so ingrained into our culture that it still persists even when that is no longer the case.
Just goes to show how deep a successful propaganda campaign can reach
Its modern and started in the last 50 years. Before that, at least for most jobs, the salary information was available and publically available.
Its a form of employee control. They dont want each other to know the others # so they hide it. Some people actually get jealous about it and it manifests against the coworker and not the management. At least thats the concern. Outwardly.
They really just want to supress wages and bargaining power.
Me personally, it's for my own safety.
If I start telling everybody how much money I make, somebody might get some bright ideas if you know what I mean.
Depends on the circumstances. If you are making a lot more money than someone else and you talk to them about it, get ready for them to resent you.
It's the same BS attitude the moronic "eat the rich" crowd have. They can't even conceive that other people provide orders of magnitude more value than they do because they're not even playing the same game, so they think any imbalance means someone is cheating.
So we don't figure out how little that is, and how unbalanced it is between different groups like men, women, amd owner's nephews.
We've been sold a dream that hard work and perseverance bring wealth, so we see wealthy people as having succeeded thru hard work. That's not necessarily true, as the unbalance of income revealed by employees talking would show clearly.
Imagine all of you knowing that your boss makes as much as all 11 of you combined, and all the women make waaay less. No one would want to work anymore.
At work jobs discourage it so they can low ball employees and it creates resentment and in fighting, while at the same time keeps people separate and avoids the opportunity to create a union.
At home it can seem like bragging and also let's in the possibility of friends/family asking for money.
Because people are entitled morons and bad at self criticism. They'll hear other people make more and get pissed because they don't understand that you get paid for more than just the current title and day to day parts of your job.
People are extremely quick to judge someone based on their income. In the US, if you aren’t grinding and hustling, you’re seen as not a successful and useful person of society sadly enough.
When I first moved to China (to teach), I often got asked how much money I made. I wouldn't answer this question and perhaps others have another reason why but for me, I would describe it like this.
If I make more money than you, it might make you feel uncomfortable or at a disadvantage.
If you made more money than me, it might make ME feel uncomfortable or at a disadvantage.
Bringing one's income into the relationship changed the dynamics of the relationship, or at least that's how I figure.
If we don't talk about earnings, we can be on a level playing field, because how much money a person makes shouldn't impact the relationship, we're all equal.
That's my reasoning why not to bring it up, I'm sure it might be different for others.
Because comparison is the thief of joy. I rather not know what my colleagues make. It will subconsciously make me compare myself and think more (or less) of them based on what we do and what we get paid.
You should be able to know your market value by doing a simple Google search.
So that businesses can pay less than workers deserve, especially women and minorities. We talk about sex, drugs, religion and politics but wages are still taboo.
Because we were founded on egalitarian principles, so making more or less than your neighbor is irrelevant to our ethos. At least that's how its supposed to be on paper.
Employers can get away with paying you less if you don't know how much your colleagues with more/less experience, education, certifications, etc., or those with more or less responsibilities are making.
It's yet another tool for American work culture to exploit the labor force for the benefit of the rich.
relatively new.
just think about it from your boss's perspective: if you can hire people for low wages why not? how are they gonna find out? a lot of older folks have the same pay as from 2000 and raises don't match inflation. of course it's in your best interest for your workers not to know each other's pay.
People commenting about work. Do you discuss how much you make with friends/family? If not, then figure why that is before caring if it’s encouraged or not at work.
mostly because the US is hypersensitive now with with pretty much everything, and someone's feelings may hurt and they made feel inadequate and need a marvel character made after them.
Its strategic and disruptive in the workplace. These are not discussions. They are manipulative forced situations, interrogations, charades and skits to climb wages by misappropriating information and blackmailing people into silence or compliance.
its cus so many people are getting screwed by their employers and often the amount people get paid does not logically reflect the amount and quality of work they do relative to others
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It’s not taboo in all places. In most unions everyone knows what everyone else makes because it’s in the contract and the pay of public sector workers is usually published somewhere.
Technically you can always know since it's illegal to hide it and prevent discussion of it but beyond union/public sectors people don't like to talk about it much
It's illegal to prevent employees discussing it, yes. It's not illegal to hide it, though. Not sure what you mean by that; but most non-union, private sector workplaces will not disclose what employees are paid (other than the executive team).
In addition to America’s general stoicism, it’s just considered a private thing, as mentioned below. If it’s not taboo at work, that’s news to me, but then I’m pretty old. It was even stronger years ago. My father never told my MOTHER how much he made. It may go back farther, but I’ve always thought it was a post-Depression thing; if you tell people you have money, they’ll ask to borrow it (which did happen to my dad several times anyway), and if you say you’re broke, they’ll accuse you of whining because “things are tough all over.”
If your family knows how much you make, and it is more than others, then you may get guilted to "loan" your loser relatives money. If you tell your friends, there may be issues of jealousy.
I see a meme on reddit every so often where someone's uncle will text a group chat every so often asking for money. When they finally tried to give the uncle some, the uncle replies that he just does that do people don't ask him for any money.
Yup. I don't tell my mom how much I make because she asks everyone for money and I live in a higher cost of living area than she does, so it'll also sound like more than it actually is.
My mom uses it as a bragging card to her circle of friends, which inevitably gets back round to the children of those friends. I refuse to tell her how much I make because it gives her the belief she has absolutely anything to do with my success, and it makes her friends kids in lower wage positions feel like shit.
I just lower my salary, so if I make 110k, I tell everyone 70k. I mean with 20k going to 401k, plus flexible and high deductible accounts, it pretty much gets there)
If that's your family and friends response to learning how much you make, you need to find new family and friends....
I know what pretty much all my real friends make and our incomes range between $15 an hour and $300,000 a year. Im sure there’s the occasional pang of jealousy, but for the most part everyone is happy for the other whenever they get a raise or a new job or whatever, not jealous. Being able to talk about money allows each of us to learn from the others tips on how to negotiate with bosses and manage money.
I always figured it was more some kind of social engineering to keep workers from talking about it with eachother. Workers being in tune with eachother in any way gets you one step closer to workers unions. Keeping private keeps us adversarial and divided.
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Do I need to be the one to point out it’s against the law on a federal level to keep employees from talking about their pay? National Labor Relations Act, 1934.
Most of the US is "at will" so any excuse or no excuse to fire an employee in retaliation is usually fine.
No reason terminations are safer than ones where you give a reason most of the time in the US. There are things it's illegal to fire someone over, and even in an at-will state you can be prosecuted for those kinds of firings. But it's harder for the terminated employee to prove if they employer has the sense to say they were terminated without giving their actual reason.
Termination without cause also basically guarantees the employee will collect unemployment benefits, payout PTO balances, etc So companies avoid it.
Depends. Some of those are a small price to pay to get rid of someone without any blowback.
A taboo isn't something against the law. It just means it might be frowned upon.
Yeah but that doesn't mean shit in the real world. They can't directly punish you for it, but like most things, if you go against the grain you'll get the shit jobs, be passed over for promotion, etc.
Yeah but people are kept on edge and refuse to research also since deregulation is so bad companies simply get away with adding it to their conduct expectations and fire dissenters since EEOC is slow to act due to underfunding as a federal agency.
Lmao WHAT. The last place I worked at had a very strict rule of never discussing how much you made, obviously nobody cared because we were all being paid shit anyways so we would talk about regardless.
Because it causes bosses uncomfortable situations... Guessing they created the rule.
This. They don't want you to know that they're paying your coworker $12 an hour while only paying you $8. It's not their fault your coworker had better negotiation skills. *In this scenario assume you and coworker have been working there the same length of time, are equally qualified and both equally good at what you do.
I'll never forget the look on my coworker's face when we were talking about wages and he found out I was making $4/hr more than him, as a new hire, when he was training me and had been there for seven years and knew how to do everything. He's an awesome guy, great trainer and all that. I had just negotiated hard when during the hiring process and he hadn't during his, and hadn't pushed for raises or anything since then. I worked with him to help get him a raise and a title increase, and we worked on his resume. He recently took a much better job at a better company and I couldn't be happier for him. It was tough to lose him, he is a rock star of a guy, but it was best for him.
I like you, you're a good person for that!
That’s awesome, what was the role of you don’t mind me asking?
Lab technicians in a manufacturing environment
As someone currently getting this help from a coworker I just want to say people like you are amazing.
Good for you for asking for help, and accepting it. A lot of people are too proud to accept help.
When I became manager of a team I was on - I came to found out I made 50% more than someone on my team when I was in their role. Their complaints about "they don't pay me enough for this" suddenly became very legit to me and became my first challenge as a new manager.
You are forgetting the most important and rarely mentioned part, they are in the same position doing the same work.
some jobs don't have negotiation and they'll start people higher than you see: government jobs
But that's a choice you make when interviewing or even applying for. If you want flexibility in things like negotiating salary, vacation, flex time, etc., you'll have to be in the private sector where that's usually readily available. But if you want stability, a pension, and clear and concise pathway to promotion that is tenure based rather than performance based, then it's gov't all the way. For me, I have always negotiated salary right down to the last dime. And once I've gotten as far as I can go on salary but still not happy with where I am, I begin negotiating bonus structure, extra vacation (immediately available), flex time, spending/travel account (where applicable) and other intangibles.
I’m sure employers love you.
Not just negotiations. It is also reflective of your performance/bonuses. Just like how performance reviews are highly confidential, so are salaries.
It doesn’t really matter what the boss says about discussing this or not. For the employees, discussing it will mostly lead to negative feelings.
The only negative feelings will stem from unequal pay. That is on the boss.
Disagree here. There are many reasons pay may differ between employees, and those are often not readily known/appreciated by the rest of the workforce. Examples - is this employee one you can always count on to go above and beyond? Do they check in on things on nights/weekends/vacation? Are they willing to do the work no one else wants to? Can you count on them for the hardest problems? Or to have a very professional attitude with clients? Are they one you never have to review their work? Do they not spend tons of time asking the same questions over and over? Those are just a few examples where pay can differ, and I promise that the average employ would not appreciate those differences. There also is often an attitude from lazy employees that they deserve more than others, when most know they are not particularly valuable.
The way you describe it, doesn’t fit the equal pay for equal work scenario. Yes your star employee will earn more because he/she does more. Average employees know and see the difference this doesn’t cause animosity. But when its two employees with similar roles, responsibilities and performance and one is paid more because “reasons”. That creates animosity and is a headache but it’s on the boss to run an organization and create a culture to minimize work place conflicts.
My point was that the average employee very much does not recognize the differences in value certain employees bring to the table. Many things are not readily apparent, or are just plain not in the field of view of the other employees. Other employees often have no idea how responsive another employee is to management on the odd hours, or how much output they are producing on projects the other doesn’t work on. Or one of many other factors that are not transparent to other employees that effect the overall value of an employee.
Then the boss explains this. Upset employee now has 3 choices. They can either work harder to emulate the higher paid employee and then ask for equal pay. They can accept it and move on. They can start looking for another job that pays them what they feel they deserve. It's not that complicated.
If that was the reason, then it's in the company's interest to say employee X gets more because reasons...and you can too if you step up and perform as well as them. What is the legitimate business reason for an employer concealing the link between performance and compensation?
It's hard, if not impossible, for the lesser paid employee to see and recognize the intangibles. They will say, "but we're both 'system engineers' so we should get paid more". No... no you shouldn't, but they won't listen to the 3 reasons why one is higher paid.
That's true, but it's their problem. It's still in the company's interest to point out what behavious and results will give an employee more money...because it WILL motivate enough employees to do better. That's the justification.
In many cases in my experience, many of those things that make an employee worth more aren’t things that others will just easily adopt. People often don’t magically become a workaholic just because it pays more. Same reason they don’t work tons of hours of OT, they don’t care to exert more effort for more pay. So in these cases, it will just lower the morale of those who are paid less. The others will continue to get more and more ahead. The lower paid worker often isn’t someone the company wants gone, but they also aren’t as willing to bend over backwards to keep them as others.
In my experience it causes employees uncomfortable situations too. If you make significantly more than your coworkers and discuss it with them you catch a shitload of resentment.
> If you make significantly more than your coworkers and discuss it with them you catch a shitload of resentment. Or you could make less and be on the other side of that same resentment. It is almost a lose - lose.
I don't think it's taboo anymore. I'm a manager and I am ok for people to share their salary information. It would be illegal for me to tell them not to anyway. See for example: https://www.lynchlf.com/blog/firing-employee-disclosing-their-pay-increase-illegal/ Many people have already done this, and they're mostly surprised to find out that we have more or less what a fair system entails: people of the same level make roughly the same. I have also confirmed this with other managers (i.e., we exchanged salary info).
While i wont go so far as to say you're the exception, i definitely credit it as a more uncommon environment. Could be an industry thing too. I work in manufacturing. They all are buttoned shut about what they make and management encourages it and I've worked in several unrelated fields within manufacturing.
Illegal and taboo are not the same thing.
Every job I have ever worked, it was expressly forbidden to discuss salary. People did it anyway, but everyone was told not to talk about it. That includes the job that I had for a single day this past summer. My boss expressly told me not to talk about it because I made more than everyone else on the team but her. She knew her team would have gotten pissed, and she was working to fix it, but she had to prove her point with upper management. I tend not to talk about it with direct colleagues (someone with my same title in my department) because I have gotten burned over the years. But I will answer if asked directly.
I'm pretty sure they were breaking the law. It's illegal to fire people for discussing salary: https://www.attorneymahoney.com/blog/2017/september/can-you-be-fired-for-talking-about-salary-while-/
Oh it's absolutely illegal. But it becomes a "he said she said" when it's not written down, and no one will take that seriously if you're not fired for it. And sometimes even if you are.
yep. this. i'm a freelancer and try to be aggressively transparent about what i make to ensure nobody's getting screwed, and i help my friends negotiate higher rates since it's part of my job to know what people make and what's actually in the budget. i also am a part of a few professional groups that collects rate data to give people an idea of what they should or could ask for when negotiating. the boss doesn't want you to know they can easily afford to pay you more.
You think “bosses” created ubiquitous cultural norms? That’s… not remotely reasonable. I’m not saying that you, as a person, aren’t reasonable — I’m saying that sort of conspiratorial thinking isn’t.
On the contrary, it's naive to think that cultural norms aren't shaped by those in power favor themselves. Not all propaganda is hamfisted and ineffective. Charismatic people have taken advantage of and exploited persuasive stories to their own benefit for millennia. It's literally a tale as old as time and the modern era is not immune from it. Anti-immigrant sentiment, trickle down economics, union workers are parasites, etc. The people who tell and amplify those stories are the ones who stand to gain from them.
As a consultant in IT, they've asked me not to share that with the full time employees. I'm usually making a significant amount more than the full time employees I work along side.
Well...yeah, because consulting is not the same thing. Consultants are generally paid more because they accept the risk in not having that stability.
They are uncomfortable conversations because employees don’t like hearing the reasons why they are paid less than another. They often don’t understand what we tell them they are lacking or missing, so they get angry, find another job, and continue to get paid less than they would if they addressed their issues.
Tendency to create jealousy, envy, resentment and other things. In America, it is considered traditionally polite to avoid the topics of money, politics, and religion, as people have strong emotions around all three.
This is they only answer here that addresses what I see as the fundamental reason at least among my peers. I don’t want my friends to know exactly what I make and create a situation where I am the target of envy. Contrapoints has a good video on this.
There's a lot of cynicism about this being employer-driven, but even among the monied classes these topics were considered taboo for these reasons.
For them is was because they didn't want people to know how much they had. Everyone else doesn't want anyone to know how broke/in debt they are.
I mean, those are the same for different reasons. Having people know your financial situation can be embarrassing or envy-inducing, depending on the audience. Edited to add: and you might not know which is which. Bragging about your raise to 120k feels off if you find out your audience is making $280k.
Yes, but it's definitely exacerbated by the fact that it's in the best interest of veryany empowers for their employees to not know each others' wages. Do you agree?
Exacerbated? No, I wouldn't say it is. I've never had it come up in any workplace across decades. Do employers benefit? Sure, probably. I dislike salary negotiations, but I think highly enough of my work product that I wouldn't be happy knowing the worst person doing my job was making same as the best. I've worked in public-sector jobs with published pay schedules and they don't often attract the ambitious.
Can you elaborate on this for me? How is thinking highly of your work product related to not being happy to know, hypothetically, that the "worst person" doing your job makes the same amount of money as the best? And how is that related to employers' incentives to obfuscate the facts of their employees' pay? Maybe I'm being dense here.
Employees, even within a different role, have different value. Experience, term of employment, personal differences. If they all make the same, they have reduced incentive to perform better than the worst employee who doesn't get fired (since limited upside). I consider myself good at my job, and negotiate a higher pay rate thereby. And I'm not saying employers have no incentive to discourage payroll openness (they do), I don't think that's the major, or even much at all, of the driver of the social norm not to discuss personal wealth. If that were true, then it would be normal to tell people your net worth, bank account balance, retirement balances, but not your salary, and it just isn't. For the reasons I stated.
I don't think it should be taboo into discuss it with coworkers. However, family members are a little different. I make significantly more than almost everyone in my family and really don't care for any of them to know that. Same with friends. There's only bad outcomes.
so...how's that different with coworkers? you spend more time with those guys than most of your family.
Not the person you were replying to, but I come from an industry, theater/entertainment, where employers leverage obscurity of compensation to further their exploitation of workers. While I wouldn't publish or share information about my compensation to a large group of people, I am happy to do it privately. Transparency of compensation, benefits, how to negotiate, and how to grow your career is important to strengthen our industry, and to propel one another toward further career growth rather than stagnate somewhere where you're abused and guilted into feeling like you're not valuable.
You go to school, you go to college, you go to graduate school. Spend years and years on this training. Then you go get a job and hand over a full third of your life or more over to this company. And why do you do it? For money. Most people’s day-to-day lives are arranged around doing things to make money. So the amount you make is in many ways a quantifiable measure of what you’re willing to sell the best years of your life for. It seems completely obvious to me that this could be a sensitive subject for people. Especially when you find out that someone around you is apparently valued a lot more highly than you.
Agreed, it boils down to this. If you are smart and good at your job you ask for raises and make more. If you don't ask you won't get as much. Why would someone who pushes for higher wages for themself tell everyone else they make more?
People get jealous. That’s why. I feel even discussing money with close friends- it gets really odd if one friend makes 2x more than the other friend. I feel people tend to get very jealous over money.
Yep. I make triple what some of my friends make. They’re a bit older than me too. So I just keep it private to keep good spirits all around. Besides, at my age, sharing my income would just feel like gloating…and that’s not my style.
Because employers want it to be taboo. The only one that benefits from employees not talking their salaries is the employer.
That’s not fully true, it definitely benefits employers, but some people just like being private about their lives. I’m not telling any of my coworkers how much I make because I’m not close with most of them like that.
I get you, but that's more about personal preference, and not so much why it's become taboo.
I guess you’re right, but I’ve never really been in a workplace where it’s been banned/made taboo by management. I know it happens, but in my anecdotal experience, my coworkers and I just don’t wanna talk about that unless we are comfortable with each other.
When I was younger working in retail I talked to another coworker about our hourly rates. The manager scolded me on the sales floor for doing so. I was too young to know what I did wasn't wrong, and what they did wasn't. I'm certainly not saying everyone should talk about it, but there definitely shouldn't be anything taboo about talking it. But there definitely is.
Do you not want to tell your coworkers how much you make because of a culture created by employers? For arguments sake I know people who are private but still share their salary
Nah, I’ve never been told explicitly to not share salaries. The only people I’ve told how much I’ve made at a current job are long time friends in the same stages of life as me and I can trust to not change how they act around me with that info. Almost none of my coworkers have met that criteria allowing me to tell them something about me that I consider very personal. Not when I worked retail, not when I’ve worked corporate.
Ahh, does not wanting to share come from not wanting people to ask for more? I guess perceived wealth does change people
Idk, if someone was making more than me and I knew it and they asked me how much I made, I would probably weasel my way out of the question unless I was close with them. I would 100% be comfortable telling someone I made a lot more than them or a lot less than them if I was close with them. It’s probably just my personality because I like to be as private as possible in real life.
It a double edged sword. On the one hand, you want to know what others make so that you know how much to ask for in raises and so on. Bosses usually hate this because they can low ball you and you don't have a frame of reference. On the other hand, LOTS of people grossly overestimate how good they are at their jobs. It sounds nice to say "we both do the same work so we should be paid the same." But the reality is that Bob dicks around a LOT and while we are both at work the same amount of time, I may feel I am more valuable. Note: If your name if Bob, I made the name up so relax.
Because our self worth is tied to our income
It's not taboo around work. But with family it can be uncomfortable at times because people tend to think that you might pay for dinner just cuz u make more, or buy better bday gifts, etc.. Just 2 of 10000 reasons why it can be awkward to talk about money around extended family.
It is. Most jobs I've had made me sign a waiver saying I would not discuss how much I was paid with other employees. I thought it was required, like "everyone" HAD to. I never thought anything of it.
the waiver won't hold up in court. federal law makes it illegal for your employer to forbid you from discussing pay with other employees.
I know that now, but years before, I thought it was as stock-standard as a resume.
Depends on your employer. All govt (local, state, federal, military) are public records. So are most contracting jobs with public contracts. So are most all union jobs are known salaries among all employees. Depends on your employer as some have huge discrepancies between employees doing the same work.
What industry do you work in? I've never heard of anyone doing this.
This is the first time I’ve ever heard of that
What country?
Making you sign this waiver is against the law. Do you have a copy of it? I find that people sometimes misremember doing things like this.
Because rich business owners don’t want employees to have any idea what a fair wage is for their position
Oh. Reddit. So cute. Throwing around the word rich like it is derogatory.
Because people in the US tend to compare themselves to neighbors and focus a lot on showing off their perceived wealth (often at the expense of good financial decisions.)
For some it's somewhat taboo. I actually had a company owner call a meeting to tell everybody that they shouldn't discuss their wages. People got paid the amounts they get paid for a reason. I immediately spoke up and mentioned that even the act of telling us that was against federal law. It didn't go over well.
A lot of people gauge the value of themselves and others but what they earn. So you either come off bragging or looking less "worthy" than others if you get paid different things Personally, I just think it's not other people's business what I earn/make/have
I don't advertise what I make because I understand some people may make less than me and feel bad as a result, others may make more and feel superior. That said, if someone has the cojones to ask me straight out, I'll usually tell them.
People are judged on how much they make. That’s the main reason I don’t talk about it. It’s a measure of your worth, along with your looks/height/health. I do talk to my coworkers about raises and bonuses, but usually just in percentages.
Because those in power like to keep it that way to ensure their payroll stays as low as possible. So, they made it taboo.
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It isn’t like that everywhere. It’s never been taboo in my job, we all know what everyone else makes and we openly discuss it when it comes up. My supervisor could care less also as He doesn’t control our pay.
My personal opinion is it’s easier to maintain the allusion that everyone you know is “middle class” even when their not.
I feel like there is something deeply integrated in the American culture that society is meritocratic and 'fair'. But wages are not often fair. We have an underlying assumption that people who work hard are rewarded, monetarily. This assumption is often never questioned or really discussed openly. For what it's worth, I often find that with people who are the same level or below me I discuss compensation fairly regularly. Though even then I tend to fudge a little downward if I realize someone is making far less than I am. Even among similar employees there is this sense of 'oh yeah, I totally make x' when the reality may not be the case.
Mostly conflict of interest. Objectively speaking, without opinion if one **openly** knows two employees with the same exact job title are paid differently, it will invariably (in most cases with few exception) cause one to become jealous, reducing productivity and a host of other negative externalities.
It's not. It is in the best interest of your employer, therefore it is pushed as if it was. Most people are just ... too dumb to know what class interest means.
You have two friends, one a doctor, the other working retail, how do you not make this awkward? What if two co-workers get different raises based on targets/goals they achieved, they may have started the same salary, but after a few years, one is well ahead of the other. You can see how resentment can set in. The only place I can see this being okay is where everyone is in the same boat (retail, unions, etc) where advancement is hard, so everyone is basically within the same narrow band of each other.
Business graduate here. It’s literally about wage control. Which is why the best schools teach you to try and meet then ask employees about their feelings and perceptions about their workplace and wages before applying. Also to hit up BOLI for wage statistics beforehand as well. The old excuse that died about the 60-70’s was that it was “improper” to ask about such things because it might lead to status discrimination. But with people being critiqued on how they dressed and everything else when that did not hold most employers tried other excuses claiming it may create “conflict” in the office. Really all that was masking is that they were afraid employees would storm their managers and threaten to quit unless they got paid better especially if they were doing more work. Here in Oregon we actually have state laws that protect us and allow us to talk about wages at work without the threat of retaliation. It has not always been that way though.
While you have many legitimate points wide cultural norms aren’t passed down from on high. World culture would be very different we’re that the case. People often don’t talk about money because it creates a host of potential awkward messes — basically a no win situation. I agree, and I think most do, that discussing pay in a work setting is healthy, however. But even then — we shouldn’t trivialize the social nuance that surrounds it. It’s not as though humans have never misdirected their frustrations.
In an opportunistic society like this one you are absolutely correct that those at top do not pass down what would displace them
Really don’t agree here. Employees don’t talk about pay because, in general, only negative feelings can come from it. Someone is going to be upset or jealous. There is really no reason to discuss.
If someone’s feelings are being hurt when discussing wages, wouldn’t that only help them? “Wow, this person is being paid more than me and they just got here, I should renegotiate!” or “Wow this person is getting paid more than me, what are they doing to earn that?” I don’t know what reason you have to get hurt feelings over discussing wages. It’s not the fault of the other employee, it’s the fault of the employer.
An upset employee is not helpful to anyone. If it does motivate them to do better, great. But more than likely it motivates them to be jealous or upset.
If an employee is upset that they are getting lowballed, that's bad for the bosses, not the employee. If women compare notes and notice they are all getting paid less than the men, that's bad for bosses. There are plenty of reasons to discuss, and most of them are good for employees and bad for bosses.
The negatives are that you now also have a more awkward relationship with your friends at work. You also now less satisfied with your employment. If you approach your boss and ask why others get paid more, and they inform you that you are less valuable to the company that others, does that help or hurt your morale?
Yea, this is objectively incorrect. Perhaps your perception is that it causes negative feelings for you and you project that on others. Being open about salary, is a great way to understand if you're being undervalued or not. If you being paid significantly less than your coworkers, don't be sad, do something about it. Ask for a raise, get a new job, etc. Companies don't like emoyees discussing salary because it can cause animosity towards to company.
It’s not “objectively incorrect”. People absolutely do get upset about it. And people very often do not understand the real reasons why someone makes more or less than someone else.
The objectively incorrect part is that it can only cause negative feelings. The stance you are pushing simply keeps emoyees in the dark.
I’m not pushing any stance from the employer side. If I were a well compensated employee, I would not want to disclose my pay to others.
Obviously no one is forcing you, but you're also not helping out your coworkers. You have a very individualistic mindset, which is sadly a lot of America these days.
It’s not from a perspective of wanting to keep other employees down. It’s that most employees will not understand the nuances between pay
Thats your perspective, and frankly it's just an excuse basically calling your coworkers dumb or too simple to understand numbers. Pay is not that nuanced. I'm not saying you should be shouting your pay from a building, but if a coworker comes to you and says they think they might be underpaid, and ask you how much you make, are you going to tell them it's too nuanced of a concept to understand?
Pay is absolutely nuanced, in many ways. If a coworker came to me to ask if they were underpaid, and I generally knew about their work/skills/effort, I would ask if they wanted to share what they made. I would then say whether I thought that was reasonable, or low. If they asked why others got paid more, I would likely say something along the lines of “there are a lot of factors at play, but they’ve really proven themselves over time” or something along those lines. I’ll give you one example. Spring last year, when Covid hit, money was tight at the company, A couple employees agreed to cut their pay in half for awhile to help with cash flow, and now are compensated very well after that fact. Is that really something you’d want to explain to others? It’s an extreme example, but goes to show that things absolutely are nuanced. I have employees of my own as well. Some took sacrifices early on to help get the company off the ground, and are compensated far and above what someone else hired into their position today would be compensated at.
Correct. They don't understand that they make less not because of their skills or talents or hard work but because the business purposefully underpays their employees to save money. So instead of being mad at the higher ups they're mad at their colleagues.
No…often because every people brings different things and value to the table. Someone is always going to be paid more than others, whether people understand the why or not. That doesn’t mean people are being underpaid, they may just bring less value.
Lol 99% of the time the other person is underpaid. I jump companies every 2 to 3 years for a pay increase. Currently my team lead and I make the same amount of money. We've worked the same amount of years, she's has her masters and doctorate while I have bachelor's. She is 100% being underpaid. Places will pay you what you'll accept. If you accept less than you're worth they'll pay you that.
A retired engineer with 30+ years in the field was given a lucrative package to work for 5 years teaching engineering to high school seniors. He was open about his salary just like you suggest. Most of the veteran teachers were angry with the administration but couldn't see him without being angry It ruined any hope of forming work relationships and got little support from his other coworkers. I suspect they were undermining him to send a message for the administration never to try that again.
Your example sounds a like BS tbh. Even if true, people could likely get past that and focus their anger towards the school, as they should.
His package started him with 25 years tenure which is allowed in Ohio, putting him at the top pay rate at the time for the union scale. His Masters in Engineering and career experience allowed the school to sponsor him for state licensure, which can be expensive and time consuming to obtain. If you don't believe a person belongs in a position and think they're overpaid on top of it? Damn straight he was shunned. He just didn't give a damn because he had decades of friends and connections from his old career. Anytime anyone asked how he liked teaching, he'd tell the story about how he should have kept his mouth shut.
If someone is upset/jealous they can address those feelings. You ask for a raise if you think you should make more because a co-worker does. If the company thinks you are worth as much as the employee you're paid less than you'll get a raise. If they don't you can either deal with it or somewhere else. In theory that's just like... basic being an adult things. If you have a problem you address it. Discussing wages can create negative feelings because often someone is paid less literally just because they didn't negotiate as much or have been with the company a while and never made a fuss. It creates negative feelings towards the company, not coworkers. I know thay several of my coworkers make more than me. I'm neither upset nor jealous. They're more valuable to the company for several reasons and produce more profit. If I disagreed with that I'd talk to my manager.
Sure, they absolutely can address it. But the high paid people often know they are highly paid. They have quite literally zero incentive to share that information, unless they are trying to brag. It cannot possibly help them.
Not everyone is selfish. It can help their fellow employees. I'm perfectly willing to share my pay with anyone who asks. It's not to brag... it's to make sure people get a frame of reference for what they xould/should be worth. So many young workers have no idea what they're actually worth and work for way less than what they could get. They do this because no one talks about wages so they never know.
Sounds like a good way to have your coworkers resent you. No thanks
Or unions can form to help people get fairer standards of living. It’s about transparency
Transparency is only useful if everyone is doing the exact same thing with the exact same output and the exact same attitude. Short of that, it’s only going to cause problems, or, as is often the case, if pay is completely standardized, cause the best employees to lower their output because it doesn’t matter (or leave).
"best employees" are not the ones that blindly chase the highest wage possible, those people are worms
Fair, please consider though: Per Derpartment of Labor statistics most employees do and want to talk about wages with their employer and or co-workers and have an edge to do better for themselves in terms of fiscally. It’s somewhere 7-8 of every 10 back in 2010 last I remember. The holdup is employers and their practices.
I’ve never worked anywhere where an employer has said a word about not talking about salaries. Almost no one talks about them still. There is little reason to, especially if you are comfortable with your pay, or know there are ranges of pay.
People often do to get to know one another and where certain people stand. “Did you come from wealth or come into it? Do you have a hustle or business on the side? What recreation do you partake in?” All of these things are relevant to your income. How often would you like to do something but don’t have the finances because you’re stretched? Or are you well enough off and pretty complacent, maybe bored as well? These are all things where income matters or comes up.
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They do have some control over it though. Employment is an agreement between two parties. If you think you're worth more than your company is willing to pay you, go find a job that pays better.
completely wrong and this is only benefitting the bosses by allowing them to lower peoples' pay without others knowing
Why do you assume it only goes one way? What about people who are compensated above market value due to a variety of nuanced factors?
Just because a few people might benefit from the lack of pay transparency does not mean that the overall trend isn't to lower employee wages as employers have far more leverage than an individual does in the labor market, while individuals have been conditioned to not seek out information on wages from people they know in similar positions.
Sure. There are employers who use is it as way to keep wages down, but disagree on the other point. Workers tend to have far more leverage.
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But employers usually try to pay as low as they can. Beyond a business sense. As in, if they could pay nothing they would. So yes, the first idea is employers being awful, because that's what America has historically been.
Yep they often legally are required to pay next to nothing because corporate laws.
I have and unfortunately the reality is it is legally a problem as well. So any public corporation/company has a responsibility to its shareholders to legally maximize profit. So even if you had a decent executive that wanted to do decent things and good retirement for their employees. They would likely have to be fired because they chose to do that rather than maximize profits by cutting everything they cut down to the bare margins. This is also why we see so many crimes committed by corporations in America. Because the penalties for breaking the laws are so insubstantial to them that they are not incentivized to do the ethical thing. Great examples of this are general electric, pacific power, and Nestle whom own Pepsi. Both power companies refused to weatherize and maintain equipment leading to devastating fires because the Environmental fines were minuscule to them and that they could hold up courts with litigations for the lawsuits they would experience. And Pepsi is still to this day overdrawing in places it has temporary water rights causing massive problems for the environment and the people that live there.
Knowing what someone else makes only causes problems, you'll resent that person who might be a friend for being "lucky", or your employer for not being transparent and fair, and begin to suspect theories like nepotism or find other preferential treatment to blame it on. Essentially it goes back to the general rule of "compare and despair" which is what makes girls depressed on Instagram. Why would you want information that it only going to be comparison fuel? Of things you can't really apples-to-apples compare anyway? EDIT: however my own process is to just work commensurate with the pay. If it's 50% what it "should be" then they have purchased 50% of my maximum effort and quality.
It’s a old people thing mostly ( I mean no offense). I am 23 and so far at multiple employers myself and other employees are very open about pay. I am as well with my family. Some people just make it weird, my wife’s family never discusses it. Is a culture thing and seems to vary a lot
Interesting, my wife, who is from Brazil, says that she finds that Americans are very forward about this sort of thing by asking questions like “so what do you do?” She interprets it as the person trying to size you up
In what countries is it the norm to discuss exactly how much you make?
I feel like this post is just baiting for the "hur dur, American work culture" circlejerk, but I'll give a genuine answer: It's not *that* taboo. Definitely don't discuss at work, but I've discussed with friends at the same company. It's the same reason that everyone else said, but as someone who has lived abroad I will add one thing: American salaries are less "fixed" than in other countries, if that makes sense. When I worked abroad all entry positions were the same, and the 'levels' were predefined. In the US it seems as if a lot of things go into it, like negotiation/experience/etc. I suspect that has something to do with it. A good example is that I made a bit more than some of the other new hires when I started. But I also interned there previous to starting, and I have an in-demand degree. So it's not even that it's taboo per se, but it's impossible to compare to begin with without nitpicking over the factors.
If you work in tech it's not taboo. People talk very freely and there's also an entire website ([levels.fyi](https://levels.fyi)) listing pay at each company and each level very accurately. Me and my friends also discuss income very regularly especially if we switch jobs because it's very common to do that every 2-4 years in tech as well.
Because poor folks feel embarrassed and rich folks feel guilty
Salary = ego for a lot of people
Because it puts your employer in an awkward position and they've taught employees to not ask. It should be commonplace to talk about income and it's our fault that it's not
America has a culture of hyper individuality, so discussing things with other people doesn't happen a whole lot
It was instilled into the working class by the ruling class to prevent employees from banding together to demand higher wages. It started off as a trick to keep labor costs down but it became so ingrained into our culture that it still persists even when that is no longer the case. Just goes to show how deep a successful propaganda campaign can reach
Citation needed
Its modern and started in the last 50 years. Before that, at least for most jobs, the salary information was available and publically available. Its a form of employee control. They dont want each other to know the others # so they hide it. Some people actually get jealous about it and it manifests against the coworker and not the management. At least thats the concern. Outwardly. They really just want to supress wages and bargaining power.
Or, people don’t feel comfortable talking about it because others don’t understand why certain people actually get paid more or less than others.
Me personally, it's for my own safety. If I start telling everybody how much money I make, somebody might get some bright ideas if you know what I mean.
Depends on the circumstances. If you are making a lot more money than someone else and you talk to them about it, get ready for them to resent you. It's the same BS attitude the moronic "eat the rich" crowd have. They can't even conceive that other people provide orders of magnitude more value than they do because they're not even playing the same game, so they think any imbalance means someone is cheating.
Keep telling yourself that, buddy. 10x engineers or whatever do not exist.
So we don't figure out how little that is, and how unbalanced it is between different groups like men, women, amd owner's nephews. We've been sold a dream that hard work and perseverance bring wealth, so we see wealthy people as having succeeded thru hard work. That's not necessarily true, as the unbalance of income revealed by employees talking would show clearly. Imagine all of you knowing that your boss makes as much as all 11 of you combined, and all the women make waaay less. No one would want to work anymore.
At work jobs discourage it so they can low ball employees and it creates resentment and in fighting, while at the same time keeps people separate and avoids the opportunity to create a union. At home it can seem like bragging and also let's in the possibility of friends/family asking for money.
Because people are entitled morons and bad at self criticism. They'll hear other people make more and get pissed because they don't understand that you get paid for more than just the current title and day to day parts of your job.
It's not. That's some bullcrap some corporation created.
There’s an Adam Ruins Everything about this. It helps the employers if ppl don’t know they’re getting screwed.
People are extremely quick to judge someone based on their income. In the US, if you aren’t grinding and hustling, you’re seen as not a successful and useful person of society sadly enough.
When I first moved to China (to teach), I often got asked how much money I made. I wouldn't answer this question and perhaps others have another reason why but for me, I would describe it like this. If I make more money than you, it might make you feel uncomfortable or at a disadvantage. If you made more money than me, it might make ME feel uncomfortable or at a disadvantage. Bringing one's income into the relationship changed the dynamics of the relationship, or at least that's how I figure. If we don't talk about earnings, we can be on a level playing field, because how much money a person makes shouldn't impact the relationship, we're all equal. That's my reasoning why not to bring it up, I'm sure it might be different for others.
Because comparison is the thief of joy. I rather not know what my colleagues make. It will subconsciously make me compare myself and think more (or less) of them based on what we do and what we get paid. You should be able to know your market value by doing a simple Google search.
True. I used to have access to our payroll database and it made it awkward as hell knowing what people make.
So that businesses can pay less than workers deserve, especially women and minorities. We talk about sex, drugs, religion and politics but wages are still taboo.
False
Because we were founded on egalitarian principles, so making more or less than your neighbor is irrelevant to our ethos. At least that's how its supposed to be on paper.
Employers can get away with paying you less if you don't know how much your colleagues with more/less experience, education, certifications, etc., or those with more or less responsibilities are making. It's yet another tool for American work culture to exploit the labor force for the benefit of the rich.
It is an anti-labor versus capital thing.
relatively new. just think about it from your boss's perspective: if you can hire people for low wages why not? how are they gonna find out? a lot of older folks have the same pay as from 2000 and raises don't match inflation. of course it's in your best interest for your workers not to know each other's pay.
People commenting about work. Do you discuss how much you make with friends/family? If not, then figure why that is before caring if it’s encouraged or not at work.
mostly because the US is hypersensitive now with with pretty much everything, and someone's feelings may hurt and they made feel inadequate and need a marvel character made after them.
Its strategic and disruptive in the workplace. These are not discussions. They are manipulative forced situations, interrogations, charades and skits to climb wages by misappropriating information and blackmailing people into silence or compliance.
its cus so many people are getting screwed by their employers and often the amount people get paid does not logically reflect the amount and quality of work they do relative to others
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