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.

I'm torn about this one. I've worked with enough people to know that not everyone is created equal even when you have the same title and do very similar jobs.

I agree that there can be some value in having salaries be transparent but at the same time I'm kind of glad they aren't. I also think more jobs should have performance based metrics to determine some of what you earn.

Like, a base salary and then a performance based portion. I'm not talking a bonus or anything. Like, if you have 2 people working the same job and one can produce 50 more widgets than the other and the quality is the same then the person producing more should earn extra. Right now if you work harder the company benefits and not you. For the most part anyway. We need more incentives for the employees to work harder to benefit from their efforts. Otherwise you get people who clock in and clock out and do the bare minimum to get the cash.

I make less than everyone here, $0 an hour.

But if I worked somewhere, it'd be McDonalds which pays $14~ an hour

I make measly $16.91/hour at wally world. Do i evny people that make more than me at my age or less? No i'm not becerra the god of envy and hate.

I know this is not the thought process everyone has in life. People hate the idea that someone is making more than them while likely doing less work, being younger than them etc. Everyone wants to get ahead of each other, even if it means screwing everyone over. Its really all one big rat race to the bottom. Thats why its hard to transparent about your salary.

I can sit here and b**** and moan all i want about my pay at 29 but its entire my fault i didn't get a job until like 24. I still have my 30s, 40s, even 50s to get where i want to be life. I already have my plans set and backup plans just incase things don't go as planned sometime down the future.

I can understand the nuances behind the subject... in a perfect world I think everyone should be able to share their salaries with each other, ESPECIALLY coworkers, but that does cause problems. People will start questioning why someone else is paid more for what they interpret as "less work", "easier work", "I have a richer background than that guy does", etc. etc. and that's not something that would totally be the fault of the employer. HOWEVER, and I do think this overrules the prior point, employers should be paying fair wages regardless and if they're caught not doing so due to salary transparency, I have absolutely zero sympathy. Of course, the nuance behind that is determining who or what determines what a "fair wage" is.

I also don't make a whole lot, less than anyone else here has mentioned (besides Dauntez of course lol), but AI is tearing the field I work for in half and it's been a bit of a struggle navigating the current job market after taking the first job I could get out of college. My current job is at least very much stress-free and fully remote, and I do have a MUCH higher savings account than my peers at least as I'm very money conscious, so I'm counting my blessings where I can. I do fully recognize though that I don't earn as much as most of my peers as the trade-off to this position, and although me and my friends take jabs at each other over these kinds of things, it's always light-hearted and they fully know they might be paid more but I have the lowest cortisol levels lol