How do you guys feel about salary transparency? Do you think it's a good thing for people to talk about how much money they make? Or is that something that should remain private?

I personally belive that salary transparency is a great thing. I think more open discussions about how much people earn at different jobs and different companies benefits everyone (except maybe the employers). It allows people to get a better understanding of what their options are, what a standard salary should look like in their industry, and what they should be expecting from their own employer.

That being said, I've found that I feel a lot less comfortable talking about my income now that I have a decent job. It wa s easy to talk about how much I was making when I was getting paid $3.50 an hour working at a summer camp. But now that I'm making more, it feels rude to bring it up. I feel like people that make a lot of money will be perceived as bragging regardless of how they discuss it or what their intentions are.

I'm even hesitant to share my salary here for those same reasons. I don't even make a crazy amount, but I don't want to make people who earn less upset. But for the sake of transparency, here it is: I work as an SAT teacher, and I make $35/hr for my curriculum development work (any non-teaching hours, basically), $40/hr for 1-on-1 classes, and $65/hr for group classes. I usually work 35-40 hrs per week.

You're all welcome to share your salary here if you'd like, but I'm certainly not expecting everyone to. And that's not even really the point of the thread. I'm more interested in hearing everyone's opinions on salary transparency itself. Is it a good thing to talk about how much you get paid? Or should everyone keep that to themselves?

I feel it is a good thing. Like I make currently $23.25 which sucks in comparison but all I do currently is quality control. Can't say too much on public forum side due to the business I am at. The new people though they start typically at $16 which is even worse for the work we do.. It isn't hard in some areas but definitely has the potential go really bad if safeguards are bypassed. Only reason I stay where I am at is because without moving this place is the best to work at money wise unless you somehow get a store manager or equivalent level of job. Raise are 25 cents a quarter so basically a dollar a year. Better than my old job where it was on a 2% raise max a year and if you had bad attendance whether you were sick or not you didn't get the raise and I didn't get the last 2 raises I was there due to family emergencies.

There is a person I work with who does the training for potential new hires and she has told me their boss for that doesn't want them sharing pay but he can't stop them if he really wanted. The only thing I don't like since I was there back when I was new and it was $14 a hour starting a guy came in making around $25 immediately. Never worked for the company before and was also pretty lazy some days.

Regardless I think younger generations are better at sharing their pay vs older groups from my experience. My work has plenty big mix of age ranges since the specific location I am at has been around close to 30 years.

It does create a rift between those who are doing well at their job and those who aren't doing as great. People will start feeling pressured and potentially Even start overworking themselves if they find out that people are making less or more than them.

But overall, it's great for giving a standard valuation for a job and figuring out what's worth what. If everybody knows what every position is worth and can figure out how much effort goes into certain raises an promotions by watching other people, then there's a record for each position that goes well beyond just those employees.

Ideally, we would have a culture where your salary doesn't change the way you are preserved, nor cause you to compare yourself to others. I think a effort to live that way, along with salary transparency, is that way to go.

But how do we accomplish that? I have no idea. Thankfully, I think the younger generations are perhaps less likely to "keep up with the Jones'" than their parents did, but that' only from my limited observation.

I think it's a positive thing, particularly within a single company or business - people should be able to know if they're being stiffed compared to new hires, if the company has grown complacent with paying them less than what they're actually worth, etc. Honestly, I'm just in favor of more worker's rights in general, up to the limit of what's possible.

It definitely shouldn't be used to draw lines and rifts between others, though, and that's something that unfortunately will happen. I don't think the solution to that is to just ban people from talking about it, though, since there will be other ways people can find out if others around them are making more money than they are. "You have an indoor pool?", "How was that vacation to France?", looking at what vehicles they're driving, etc.