New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary
m.sfgate.com
m.sfgate.com
Hmm, I'd never thought about that angle,but I guess it makes sense.
No word on if they are allowed to use Equifax, etc to pull salary data from?
EDIT: looking at the bill it looks like querying Equifax is probably also prohibited
> (b) An employer shall not, orally or in writing, personally or through an agent, seek salary history information, including compensation and benefits, about an applicant for employment.
As a side note one of the biggest issues macro economists have is that its very hard to prove their theories as you often can't run huge macro economic experiments.....
> Delaware, Massachusetts and Oregon have passed similar laws that take effect later this year or next, said attorney Ben Ebbink of Fisher & Phillips in Sacramento. Philadelphia passed one that was supposed to take effect in May but is being challenged in court. New York City and San Francisco have similar ordinances that take effect Oct. 31 and July 1, respectively.
With the number of states introducing legislation like this it will be interesting to see if you can tease out any state or city based GDP growth/shrinking based on these laws.
//edit: Well shit, TIL: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/10/equifax-breach-fallout-y...
Then they turn around and sell all that data while telling the participating companies what a wonderful service they are providing them by offloading this task from traditional HR.
It's crazy.
https://www.theworknumber.com/samples/The-Work-Number-Employ...
As you can see its much more than 'just' your salary. It includes (amongst other things):
Union Affiliation; Salary breakdown (Base, OT, Commission, Bonus); Dates of pay increases; Medical Insurance (coverage, Policy #, Provider name, Annual cost); Any Workers Comp claims; Breakdown of your paycheck (401k contribution, taxes payed, garnishments, etc)
Just imagine the national outrage if some employer was shown to be directly selling this information to someone about their own employees. Yet a third party is doing just that and many companies are complicit. It is absolutely outrageous!
'hmmm maybe I don't want to hire Joe Shmo, after all he did join a union in the past. He might try to unionize our plant'
'looks like Joe also has some garnishments, doesn't sound like someone we want on our team. Probably has a troubled past.'
'well looks like Joe made 70k last year, but a lot of that was from working OT. I think we can get away with offering him 60k and promising him a lot of OT "opportunities"'
Welp.
Well, you certainly don't have to give your "real" income. Aspirational income is fine.
Do you have a source for this? Or can you define "many" some more?
(Slightly over a quarter of households in the US have a household income over $100K as reported on tax returns. Household income for the purposes of credit application can be meaningfully higher than for adjusted gross income tax return concerns.)
it's 26.3% of households with incomes over $100K. I saw another estimate of 125 million households, so it could well be ~33 million households with >=$100K household income.
(I'm not so much quibbling with numbers as trying to get across that "it's a lot of people")
Even after you're 21 you're supposed to only include someone else's income if you have access to it. If your parents don't give you a stipend then you aren't supposed to include their income.
But (on credit card applications) I've always put a 6-figure income in when asked. Even as a college student with an income of $0.
Also, your accounts would be closed if they found out that you lied on your application. American Express, in particular, is known to conduct financial reviews and shut down accounts who can't prove their income.
>ROCHESTER, NY—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that David P. Gaylord, 51, of Rochester, New York, pleaded guilty to bank loan application fraud before the U.S. District Judge Charles J. Siragusa. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison a fine of $1,000,000.
>Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany H. Lee, who is handling the case, stated that in 2006, while residing in the Western District of New York, the defendant submitted various credit card applications to Advanta Corp., Bank of America, and Family First Federal Credit Union. Gaylord knowingly provided false information regarding his income in order to obtain lines of credit from the banks and credit union. The defendant indicated that his income was anywhere between $90,000 to $122,000 when, in 2006, he reported to the Internal Revenue Service that his income was approximately $12,488. Gaylord ended up leaving outstanding balances on the various lines of credit and filed for bankruptcy.
However, I can't imagine the compliance nightmare that would exist around a process that lets HR people look up people's equifax information. If they get a full report, it could contain information about disabilities, national origin, ethnicity, religion, and enough information to construct knowledge about sexual orientation.
However, all that information is pretty worthless for most decisions. Aside from it being illegal to use that information for hiring decisions (in most situations), the equifax stuff isn't super accurate. I've looked myself up and it gets a lot of information wrong, most other people I know who have looked themselves up in have also found major inaccuracies.
Employment credit checks are perfectly legal.
Don't employers already get most of that from doing in person interviews? Even through phone screens you can gather most of that information.
Some of that information can be obvious, as in the case of visible disability and occasionally ethnicity. But it's not permissible to inquire in any case. And speaking from the side of the interviewee, such questions would immediately bring the interview to a not overly friendly close, both because the answers are none of any prospective employer's business, and because no company so insensate to liability concerns is likely destined to end up anywhere I care to go.
The reason people avoid asking (and tell others to avoid the same) is to avoid accusations or the appearance of using that sort of information in their hiring decision. You really have no defense if you ask about ethnicity and then decide not to hire that person, it's logical that you were asking about ethnicity because you wanted to use that information in your decision.
"Don't ask don't tell" is a good policy.
Once you actually have the job it's STILL just as illegal to use this information in promotions/firing decisions. However, it comes up in casual conversation all the time. People don't fret about asking a subordinate where they were born in casual conversation.
No, they aren't. First, it's questionable whether sexual orientation is a federally protected axis of discrimination, and, second, it's illegal to discriminate on protected axes (except where they are bona fide qualifications, or some other exception to the general rule exists), not to enquire on them (HR will generally avoid enquiry not necessary for a clearly legal purpose to mitigate the risk that that will be viewed as evidence of discrimination, not because it is illegal in and of itself.)
At Equifax, though, information about random people isn't customer data. It's the product. They give it to anyone who asks for money. Do they have any motivation to say J random employee can't just look up everybody's data? Why? Letting you have free access to what they charge everyone else for would just be a perk, right?
Likewise for credit scores--why else would a lender report data to Equifax if Equifax wasn't purchasing that data, either directly or as part of a larger contractual arrangement.
It violates FCRA at the very least.
Usually the data is reported by the employer themselves.
You can query the employment data without querying the full Equifax report.
Ever filled out a credit card application? Most of them ask for your current salary. This is before the credit check is done.
My guess is the credit card companies are passing that information back.
Of course, any time I put my salary in one of those applications it's correct in a range of $50K+. If they have those numbers, they are really inaccurate.
Users include 82% of all F500 companies and they have 225 employment records.
My company uses it :(
http://redtape.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/30/16762661-exclusi...
This is a pretty shocking news article regarding the last time Eqifax was in the news about this a few years ago. At that time (like now) they were selling the data to all kinds of companies.
“Developer employee cheatsheet: WTF is Salary Benchmarking?“
https://codeformore.com/developer-employee-cheatsheet-wtf-sa...
You give permission to your employer to query those sorts of databases when agreeing to a "background check" as a condition of being hired.
Obviously it gets really tricky to prove someone did or did not use protected information in their hiring/firing decision, so it's clearly safest for HR to avoid having any of that.
And I have worked at places where HR could unilaterally veto a given employee based on certain criteria (education, background check, etc).
No instead they hire contractors for that purpose.
They aren't totally unaccountable, there is some regulation, notably the Fair Credit Reporting Act, as well as other laws that regulate data brokers.
Americans, in general, are much more comfortable with private for-profit industries handling these sorts of matters over governments.
Anyways, there's absolutely no laws that salaries should be kept secret, your employer can post that information anywhere it wants. In fact, government employees salaries are expressly public information. The reason why employers limit access to salary data is because it keeps salaries lower, it gives them an upper hand in salary negotiations due to information asymmetry. That's why the salaries of professional athletes are public information, they have unions who make sure this information is available.
For me it's a good thing this information is available. I pay lower interest rates, lower insurance premiums, have more access to credit, have no trouble renting before I bought a house.
> We get the market rates through a company called Radford. [1]
Is "Radford" still allowed to pull salary data?
https://m.signalvnoise.com/how-we-pay-people-at-basecamp-f1d...
Also, "and — if applicants ask — must give them a pay range for the job they are seeking"
So start offering what the job is worth.
Never take that for granted.
Actually I don't like this kind of law at all, because it causes random enforcement or in the worst case enables selective enforcement.
Probably not reliably; the numbers are still small and there are way too may potential confounding factors.
This makes the law seem even more ridiculous to me. Do we really need the government stepping into the hiring process like this and micromanaging? It feels like they treating us like children incapable of tying our own shoes or something
This seems like a very low-impact way to ensure that your past salary history is not used against you. Why should it be? And what is the burden of simply disallowing a line of questioning, with no burdensome reporting or auditing requirements?
Why is it more ridiculous? We already have laws against discrimination based on gender. If the issue isn't being solved, while being hands off, it seems natural to try something different.
> It feels like they treating us like children incapable of tying our own shoes or something
Well it does seem employers are incapable of eliminating the gender wage gap so perhaps the treatment is appropriate. Not that I blame them.. being unbiased is extremely difficult and requires a conscious effort.
The $0.79 on the $1 shit has been debunked a million times yet is still persists for some reason.
The last good study I read showed a gap of something like 5% which was in the statistical margin and was largely accounted for by negotiation tactics.
For an anecdote I (a male) earn less than many other men in my same job, and same experience level. Why because I am TERRIBLE at salary negotiation, (or any other price negotiation, i.e I prefer the CarMax pay what the sticker says model to the haggle over every last $1 model)
At the same time, I have been involved in the hiring of both male and female employees in the IT world, never once at any time I have ever seen, heard or been a part of discussions where a person would be offered to get a lower salary simply because of their gender.
Every hiring process I have ever been involved in the Pay scale is always set long before we even have any applicants. We have a budget, wages for each position are set based on the budget the gender or personal circumstances of the person have no factor in it. We have to find someone that not only fits the job requirements, but also the salary requirements. That can be a challenge, and we have had to pass on candidates simply because we could not meet their salary demands.
Your employer may have strict pay bounds set, but a lot of places don't. The pay can vary highly between candidates, especially if the candidates are weak negotiators. If you disclose your current salary, you're a weak negotiator, but employers put a lot of pressure on you to disclose it. I tend to tell employers that I'm not allowed to disclose my salary, which ends that part of the conversation, but most people don't know to do this.
This law benefits you just as much as it does women.
As far as disclosing pay, I alway deflect it and treat the question as them asking me what my salary expectations are, which likely ends up doing the same thing, but I dont think I have ever told a company what my salary was at a previous job
My current employer never asked, they said "this job pays X per year" did get a small increase over that first offer but not alot.
At this point in my career though (17 years in) I focus less on raw salary and more on working environment, I would rather take a lower salary to have a care free easy environment than make 15% more but have a high stress high demanding employer. Been there done that... not for me.
I'm sure you're very smart and know better than all[1] the current[2] research[3].
[1] https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publication-download/...
[2] https://www.accenture.com/gb-en/gender-equality-research-201...
[3] https://www.strath.ac.uk/business/research/research/highligh...
[2] - there are no sources or data analysis in their report, it's just infographics. Even then, their definition of the gender pay gap is similar to [1]:
"The report flags a clear risk, however: the choices that young women undergrads are making now are setting them up to enter the workforce with fewer digital skills, less mentoring advice and lower interest in pursuing high-paying jobs, compared with their male peers. "
"Adding to this imbalance is the fact that women are much less likely than men to have paid work (50 percent and 76 percent, respectively). This contributes to a hidden pay gap that increases the economic inequities between women and men. Based on the hidden pay gap, our research shows that for every $100 a woman earns, a man earns $258. Since women are usually responsible for the bulk of unpaid work, such as child care and housekeeping, the effects of the hidden pay gap for them are immense."
[3] - link to report is dead
Number 1 is not comparing Equal Work and experiance, infact one of their summary bullet points is how part time women earn less than Full Time men... ummm yea. Part time people earn less than Full Time people.. That is not a earth shattering fact nor it is a symptom of sexism
They also point out that Part time women earn MORE than part time men...
Further most of the study looks at Overall wages in general with out comparing actual job roles to job role. This is a general misdirection often used by people that want to invent sexism where there is none. The fact that women often choose careers in fields that are traditionally lowering paying like Social Work, or Teaching is not a symptom of sexism
Number 2 is not a study
Number 3 is 404 page not found
This is the truth. When I finished my CS degree and started looking for work, I had a recruiter tell me I shouldn't expect any pay over my previous job, and since my previous job was a software testing internship for $12.75/hr, I shouldn't expect more than $15/hr or so. I said "Yeah, no. I'm not taking a software engineering job for barely over $30k/year." He insisted that's how the industry works, even though my previous job was just an internship and wasn't even an engineering position.
I basically told him to pound sand, especially after he told me that at that position, I'd be expected to work 45-50 hours/week. Sure, I needed work, but I wasn't destitute.
I don't think its mandated by law, but thats's how the system works anyway.
Unless you disclose your prior CTC no one will call you for your interview.
Start ups are a different case.
The second best response is 'your offer is better, but inspires zero loyalty. If you want me to stay for longer than it takes for your competitors to get back to me with an offer, you'll improve that offer.'
Because a certain group of people insists that the original $0.77 on the $1 statistic DID control for career choice and the like...even though it didn't. Any claims to the contrary are obviously misogynistic lies continuing the patriarchy. \eyeroll\
I've always said...if the pay gap really WAS that big, then why would employers bother to hire men?
That did in fact happen and was being done by economists. This was about 35 years ago though, so I have no idea if the effect is still in place
The proposed answer is that the employers are sexist. Even large corporations don't always act rationally.
It persists because it's a real average.
And uh, it's not the case that the pay gap has been disproven in many industries.
Let's step aside the point of generalizing one anecdote to be representative, however. Can we really assign the disparity solely to microaggressions against women? Would we feel the same if the split were 75/25,or 51/49? What is the threshold of equality with respect to noise?
> Can we really assign the disparity solely to microaggressions against women? Would we feel the same if the split were 75/25,or 51/49? What is the threshold of equality with respect to noise?
Why don't you use your powerful male thoughts to do some basic bayesian modeling and come up with some proposals? Many people have so maybe you can borrow their work, if that sounds like too much effort.
But hey, to do an analysis we need some data! Let me provide you with a recent and impartial source: https://nsf.gov/statistics/2016/nsb20161/#/
Here's a fun one: Stats suggest in the US that men:women declare majors ~3:1 across all engineering disciplines but ~2:1 in computer science at the outset. However, when we look at graduation rates proportional to the whole of their class in 2016 we saw: computer sciences (17.9%), engineering (19.3%), physical sciences (39%) and mathematics (43.1%).
Computer science has an abnormally high attrition rate despite a increased chance of declaration for major. Other similarly complex and abstract disciplines such as mathematics (which CS leans upon heavily to get any real work done) do not have such a falloff.
So gosh. Where do YOU draw the line? Care to show us the work for how you derived it? I'd love to know.
I could probably get numbers for major vocational education startups. I think I might go pursue that. Since many of those are online, they'll have less noise from on-campus harassment.
No. Did I suggest that? I don't think I did. All I mentioned was structural disparity, which is likely multivariate. Microaggressions is a strange thing to jump to from the conversation, compared to say, the effect of video game marketing on preferences, the attitudes of parents and guidance counselors, or parental fears about internet predators and private PCs for children.
I don't have data readily available on this, but there weren't that many women declaring CS to start with, and I kind of expect that if we divided CS freshmen men into 'has written a program before' and 'has not', attrition rates for women would track the 'has not' fairly closely.
> Would we feel the same if the split were 75/25,or 51/49?
I don't know where the bright line is, and there probably isn't one. If it exists, it'd probably exist be between those to ratios. But the fact is it's more imbalanced than either ratio suggested, which should probably motivate policy changes more strongly.
Either is unacceptable, don't you agree?
Why are you so eager to assert the labor of women is obviously worth less?
What an insane and condescending assumption.
I support focusing effort on training women for high paying jobs. I support researching why women don't study STEM degrees as much as men, and working to mitigate that gap.
I do not, however, support paying those that study less valuable "feel-good" degrees more money just because more women choose to go down that path.
And finally, I don't need to actively "support" women making the same as men within the same professions, because that's already the reality we live in.
If an average exists then an average exists. We can talk about how it's structured, but the existence of an average pay gap is hard to dispute at this point.
If you find that narrative offensive, ask yourself why. I suspect the motivations are not very laudable.
Sure, but if women have a harder time getting promoted then they also have a harder time getting the same job and experience. Thus, even if women are being paid the same when they have the same job and experience, the discrimination still exists and they are still as a group prone to being paid less. Perhaps we should name it something more appropriate than wage gap though since the nuance is lost.
http://www.businessinsider.com/women-are-less-likely-to-get-...
Most research I've seen show that it's the women who are failing to take initiative in asking for raises, rather than the employer purposefully holding them back.
Yet the pretext of these laws is always under the assumption it's the employer actively doing something to block it instead of passively not offering it to people who don't ask (for whatever cultural or biological reason), likewise the women are not active but also passive in this situation.
Additionally you made the same jump in logic to assume women aren't getting the same jobs, the study was limited to promotions and this can't be easily assumed either.
This isn't about blaming the victim either but if you're going to micromanage it at least have to clear motivations and end goals that are being controlled for...
Agreed.
> Most research I've seen show that it's the women who are failing to take initiative in asking for raises, rather than the employer purposefully holding them back. Yet the pretext of these laws is always under the assumption it's the employer actively doing something to block it instead of passively not offering it to people who don't ask (for whatever cultural or biological reason), likewise the women are not active but also passive in this situation.
I don't get that impression but that's a fair point.
> Additionally you made the same jump in logic to assume women aren't getting the same jobs, the study was limited to promotions and this can't be easily assumed either.
Is it unreasonable to assume that someone with a higher position and more responsibilities would have an easier time landing a higher position job at another company? Or perhaps I'm not understanding what you're saying?
> This isn't about blaming the victim either but if you're going to micromanage it at least have to clear motivations and end goals that are being controlled for...
Fair point.
The next step after that would be for accreditation to be made more flexible, accommodating combinations of work-study, self-study, community college, private lab classes, and standardized testing to qualify a person for an accredited degree without having attended a traditional university at all.
Competition for admission to expensive, elite schools that apparently don't teach any better but simply pick the applicants who have already made themselves elite and charge them exorbitant fees to grant a brand-name credential which then boosts the value of the brand itself is distorting actual EDUCATION beyond all recognition.
The sooner employers have to judge applicant quality by means other than perceived eliteness of their school, the more diverse the paths to employment success can become, which ought to be a goal of both the left and the right politically.
You can already get an accredited 4-year (or graduate) degree without traditional University; e.g., through Western Governor's University, which is an accredited but non-traditional, competency-based, online school that’s been operating for almost 20 years.
The law also requires that a pay range be provided by the employer upon request. I'm completely in favor of this law. Those who are strong negotiators will still be able to negotiate how they wish, and those who are in less fortunate positions won't have their pasts come back to bite them.
Well if the objective assessment of the evidence didn't reveal a wage gap based on gender, then maybe we could agree.
But it seems, left to their own devices, many companies perpetuate the wage gap.
So what this does is further increase the cost of doing already shady and illegal business by making a practice that's almost universally bad for workers anyways and made that illegal to.
These laws don't result in jail, they result in fines. So it's the government engaging in it's population-mandated practice of making illegal practices more expensive.
If I merely ask how much I ought to offer and provide the applicants data then it would seem no law is breached.
The law benefits male employees just as much as it benefits women. Lawmakers and PR teams just like to spin everything as addressing the gender gap to appeal to society-wide damsel in distress syndrome.
When you start a new job, it's not uncommon for your new employer to offer you a salary that's X% higher than your old one, using that as a base. If your old salary was lower due to discrimination, you'd start with a lower base, and would get less in the new job than someone who was not previously discriminated against.
Data shows women tend to do much less negotiation than men. If you didn't negotiate your first salary that can compound for the rest of your career even if you negotiate later salaries.
My analogy of "we're raising the minimum wage to help women/<insert minority>" still stands.
Also there's evidence to suggest that the gender gap is a myth http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender...
That is due to discrimination. Discriminating against someone who is socially awkward and can't negotiate isn't any different than discriminating against someone for their gender. Both factors are things people can't generally control. One might even go so far as saying it is worse than discriminating based on religion, given the general view of religion being a choice one can actively change.
Historically we have been fine with such discrimination, but it wasn't too long ago the true was based on all the forms of discrimination we now view as wrong.
Actually, it's very different, precisely because most people can control social awkwardness, and further, a socially awkward person by definition can be difficult to work with others, which is a major component to just about any job.
This is a wild generalisation at best. I know many people with crippling social awkwardness that they would give anything to be able to control to any degree but they can't.
> a socially awkward person by definition can be difficult to work with others
This I will concede is more true than not.
I wouldn't necessarily call this exploitation since I think there's a broader issue in play, but it's not exactly like everybody, except this one isolated discriminated segment, is just thriving. And in particular I thinking framing this as an issue of discrimination works as a red herring against the aforementioned broader issue. That issue being that general increases in productivity and the percent of qualified individuals are resulting in a downward pressure on wages. The rapid growth in outsourcing, increases in foreign workers, free trade, and other such things also work to compound these issues.
I do not believe there is any clear solution, but I think it's a shame that the focus is rarely placed on this issue. And when it is, it's often more in the context of jingoism than the issue itself.
But the economy doesn't really work that way, it's the opposite. When the economy is doing well, fewer people complain... it doesn't matter if my neighbor makes more than me as long as I'm improving at a decent clip.
But when the economy does less well, it's only reasonable for everyone to look at the inequities.
But just because fewer people complain about inequities in a good economy doesn't mean that we should forget about them and solely focus on the economy overall. Curing inequities is a moral goal in its own right.
And a bit of a tangent here but the "it doesn't matter if my neighbor makes more than me as long as I'm improving at a decent clip" is also a bit dubious. One social study that has repeated and reproduced countless times is that people are happier being the king among rats than a pauper among kings. People ought care about themselves objectively. In reality we measure ourselves relatively. Kind of a bad trait for a species seeking to make global progress, but again - that's all a tangent that's way out there!
As for my own view, the way to "cure inequities" is to ensure equal opportunity. It turns out time and again the medicine is rather worse than the disease when we start working to ensure equality of results. I'm actually in favor of this law since I see no positive result from employers asking for employee past earnings. What's offered to somebody should not be based on what they earned in the past like some sort of soft caste. It also takes another burden off applicants. However, I would be rather shocked to see this have any meaningful effect whatsoever. An employer is going to have a high price and a low price. I don't see removing one tidbit of information making all that of substantial changes to either, or the applicant's ability to more effectively hit the high. But I would absolutely love to be proven wrong.
When stocks are up and wages are flat, it means that those with wealth get wealthier and a faster rate than those without wealth. Inequality worsens, and advancement is based not on what one is doing, but on what they started with. Not exactly equal opportunity.
I could see companies low-balling when they don't have salary information, but then going up if they find out they're not matching/beating the candidates current salary, which would effectively be the same thing as today.
I personally never answer questions about my previous salary or my expected salary. When HR has given me forms to fill out that have questions about either I just leave them blank, and they've never made an issue out of it.
Some recruiters tend to be a lot more pushy about it, but I just stick to my guns, and refuse to budge on the issue, telling them that I cosider that information confidential. A couple recruiters have refused to work with me because of this, but most are much more understanding. There's certainly no shortage of recruiters out there, so I really don't feel deprived of many opportunities just because a couple have walked away.
I've had one recruiter insist on it because they said they were paid by employers to get that number. They're basically insisting that I participate in a free salary survey for them, for which they'll get paid. Maybe if they shared their cut of what they were getting for that information, I'd consider giving it to them, but otherwise naming a number first will put me in a weaker bargaining position, so I don't.
There's a flip side to this, however -- whether to share salary information together with other employees. In the US it's frowned upon, but I hear it's quite common in Europe. I've also heard it argued that employees knowing each other's salaries makes it harder for employees to get taken advantage of by their employers -- which is probably why some employers have tried to forbid their employees from talking about their salaries with other employees, and why I've considered doing so myself, though I haven't yet. It's just such a taboo subject at work. Nobody talks about what they make.
I can see the obvious downside of sharing a relatively low salary, but it seems like there could be benefit to sharing a high salary (again, relative to your on-paper experience and value).
The other situation that I've seen this in is job ads posted by recruiters who post way-above market-rate salaries and then try to bait-and-switch you when you answer the ad. Also a big red flag.
Mostly, though, I am interested in negotiating, and don't want to commit to a number even before I've had a chance to make a favorable impression on the employer, because then they could say "well, you knew ahead of time what we were paying, so why are you trying to negotiate?" Well, if they had posted a realistic number or their best possible offer, maybe there'd be no need to negotiate -- but that is virtually never the case.
Employers know this, so they just adjust their advertised range downwards so that the "Y" in "X to Y" is actually at the low end of the range they're actually willing to pay.
If you share and your amount is > the employers, you have no job. Bad situation. If you share and your amount is < the employers, you'll be underpaid. Bad situation. If you share and your amount = the employers, you may have a job, but you'll never know if you left money on the table because you offered first. Bad situation.
If you offer the number first, the employer becomes the customer - and the customer is always right. If you wait for them to make you an offer, they have to make an offer that is compelling, in the same way sales people go above-and-beyond to close their deal.
Literally the only way sharing your salary first is advantageous is if you need a job immediately. If you can wait, it's best to hold onto your number. If they cared so much about "saving time" they would have put the salary range in the posting - the reason they don't is because it's disadvantageous to do so!
If the first thing out of your mouth is salary and they balk at that then you never even get to the negotiating phase.
A few failures, like you had, is simply part of the process. I don't think it's reasonable to expect to be successful a job hunting every time you go into the interview process. The time you put in is part of that process.
This doesn't mean you should share current salary information, but does mean you should be prepared to state your salary expectations. This can be a good thing, as you can anchor high.
If you're in demand and are taking phone screens on a whim, you can always ask the recruiter to share their range. Odds are good they won't, and you can have some "fun" by expressing concern that they don't know what they're hiring for.
If we assume that your time has some amount of value, you are always better off withholding your desired salary.
If you want to see whether or not they're going to be a potential employer, ask them for a ballpark of what they're willing to pay. But there is no reason for telling them free information.
FWIW, I have never had this happen to me in the Valley. Companies will either make projections on what their stock will be worth in the future to make their offer look as attractive as my current pay, or they'll straight up tell me that they have a leveling chart and $X is the maximum they can offer.
Asking me is a rational thing for them to do because they have nothing to lose - same outcome if I decline, win if I accept.
If I'm currently employed, that saves me taking time off for interviews, etc.
Depends on how desperately you want to leave, in that case, I guess.
If I don't share and my amount is > than the employer's, I still have no job. The sharing just saves time.
Even if they wind up not hiring you because they find out you're too expensive for their current budget, their budget might increase in the future and they might try to hire you again. Or the people who you made a favorable-enough impression to want to hire you might look to hire you when they're working for some other employer with a bigger budget. If you disqualify yourself by naming too large a number at the outset you'll never get the chance to make that great impression.
Finally, not everything's always about money. If you wind up at the point where they want to hire you and finally you start talking numbers, if their best salary offer is below what you're looking for there might be able to compensate you in some other ways that you could both find acceptable -- that is the essence of negotiation. Here once again, if you had disqualified yourself by naming too high a number at the outset, you'd never get the chance to negotiate.
Most on-site interviews require you to take a day off. If you've got 10 days of PTO, you can do a maximum of 10 interviews a year, and that's if you don't get sick or take any vacation. There is definitely a cost to interviewing.
Well, at no cost. Whether you can do more without adverse employment consequences depends on your company's unpaid leave policy.
Of course, if you only have 10 annual PTO days, that's a problem in itself.
Do you think you'll be able to convince an employer post-interview that you're actually worth that much? If so, then don't let them decide otherwise before they actually interview you.
Your future salary expectations likely have a basis in your current salary. Prospective employers know this. Prospective employees know this. If expectations are stated, with that understanding, then your current salary should be irrelevant. If you're having trouble signaling your value to a prospective employer, then your current (good) salary, seems like an easy way to communicate your value, but it's flawed. Salary is far too reductive of a valuation of yourself. If your value is so difficult to communicate, then perhaps a little self-reflection would help you to pinpoint your strengths to better showcase them.
Further, there are few positive reasons for a prospective employer to seek that number. While it offers them market research into salaries to be competitive, it mostly lets them optimize their offer for the bare minimum to bring you on board. It lets them offer in such a way that you'll compromise your expectations for something slightly better salary-wise and different. I liken it to purchasing a vehicle from a dealer and knowing their margins before hand. This is an oversimplification, and they can say 'no' to a low margin, but it's far easier to persuade them to say 'yes' when you still know they're getting something positive out of it.
Not necessarily true. My future salary expectations (or _needs_) may have to do with a previous salary, my cost of living, my recent experience or education, or my financial situation.
I've worked in different cities with different COL and also taken cuts in a down-turned market. My current employer is getting a bargain.
If I apply for a job and am asked for this information, I may say, I make $X but I need $2X for reasons A, B, C.
This benefits me because the response tells me if I am out of their range or if they can help me pay my bills, potentially.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/california-latest-state...
Only solution is probably to stress to their clients to just set a max salary and expect to pay it.
Nobody in the contracting world wants to undersell themselves. If somebody on the team is getting 75/hr, everybody better get 75/hr or hell gets raised. This is why the O&G industry out in Houston pushes back hard against any salary-sharing.
Too bad I don't live in CA.
if i end on the other side again i will ask for the upper range for myself and see where it gets me.
You are free to offer less money, and the candidate is then free to not waste their time talking with someone who will underpay them.
When asked about salary I say that I consider my previous/current employer's salary information to be proprietary & confidential information and I would be violating the agreement I signed when I joined that company to keep such information private, by revealing it.
I basically present it as an ethical issue, and effectively say, "I feel I would be doing something unethical by revealing that information. You're not going to ask me to do something I consider unethical, are you?"
Of course, if they say yes, that tells me something else entirely too, and also something I'd like to know before I start working somewhere.
Such agreements are not allowed in California. It would be illegal and unethical for a company to ask you to sign it.
Considering the breath of paygrades for even similar experience level jobs across the tech sector it’s not that surprising.
If a company looks for some one for say 100-120K you are wasting your time and the recruiters time if you won’t take any offers below 180.
Whilst you might find an employer who’ll be willing and able to go 5-10% over the max it’s not likely that you’ll find many who’ll be able to go 50% over max unless it’s a blanket employment without fixed ranges for both experience and salary.
Salary ranges are pointless, I always tried to tell my clients this but for some reason they always would give me a range. I gave up ever giving the range to my candidates and just told them the max (hard max, contract O&G, so they wouldn't try to negotiate above, it'd be pointless).
The truth is, employers are willing to pay $180k, but if someone would work for $110k[1], they'd rather find that out in advance.
Btw, I've had a recruiter from GooglAmaFaceSoft tell me in advance the max may for a position.
[1] I consider this to be a bad idea. An employee who won't negotiate a higher salary will often instead test his or her market value by interviewing elsewhere. Because these employees feel uncomfortable in salary negotiations, they are surprisingly likely to simply take the new job as a way of getting a raise. I think the reason this happens a lot is that negotiating types, who often end up in management, have trouble grasping that someone would actually quit and find a new job for a 10% pay raise rather than simply asking.
Here in London you have a lot of companies that look for people with similar experience that have huge pay ranges.
A Sr. Engineer can be making anywhere from 40-45K to 110-120K a year (in general health care pays the least, fintech/finance pays the most, startups in the UK often underpay and equity is a joke if they'll even give you any (like 0.5-1% to single digit employee's straight after the accelerator).
Yes when you break it down not every company gets the same level/quality of talent but the requirements on paper are the same.
As for Salary ranges in the UK most of them post, but the ranges can be pretty huge (my company has a range of 65-110K for Sr. Engineers (which overlaps with both engineer III and Lead Engineer), and while it might appear that it's "well they are willing to pay 110 but they rather pay 60" deal there is another side to the story.
Headcount doesn't makes sense, quite often you might get a head count for a specific position say a Sr. Engineer but the team doesn't need one backfilling positions with lower grades isn't always possible so what end up being is that they'll hire people with the bare minium amount of experience needed to pass the HR filter at the lower end of the pay grade spectrum to keep enough money in their budget for pay rises or to hire external consultants.
So while huge ranges can lead to what some people see as underpaying because some one didn't ask enough or didn't had a large enough salary previously to get more it's also the case that these ranges allow teams and departments to navigate through the corporate bullshit of arranged headcounts and stupid ratios.
When you need to have 2 engineer II for every 4 engineer I, and 1 engineer III for every 5 engineer III and 1 sr engineer for every 3 engineer III and so and and so forth you really needs these huge and overlapping ranges to actually be able to hire people in a way that is sensible to the your team / department needs.
On the more anecdotal side this is what currently actually helped my team a lot we need a Sr Engineer but we don't have a headcount, but since Engineer III on the top end is about the middle field of the Sr. paygrade we can use that with a signing bonus to get the people with the experience and skills we need rather than just effectively waste money on a person that we will not be able to get from.
I've joined as a Sr on an intentionally downgraded backfill on a recommendation from a friend who works in the same department since the pay would be identical near the top end of the pay grade but having another tier to "grow into" would allow me to get a bigger raise in the future since a grade promotion has a 12.5% pay raise by default which means that if I can't get the raises I would like I can always be internally promoted to for a bigger raise, and it's much easier to be promoted from Sr to Lead than taking the tech expert or manager roles since those require more years of experience in the company for an internal promotion (again dumb policies but you can't always fight the system).
What a waste of my time. Never again.
The two people I know who came to Google as juniors are forever typecast as such and are also not being paid well.
Not Google continued to treat me better after as well. If it's bad going in it's going to stay bad.
At Google the recruiter put me in the SRE/SWE track which I was skeptical of and communicated to them. I also communicated about the compensation issues in advance saying if I got a bad offer it wasn't going to happen. Still wasted my time.
It's high for the industry if you consider the entire US or the world. The solution there is pick the right employer. The right ones are not that much harder to get into than the wrong ones especially if you play the interview game. You also need to not get caught location based comp schemes.
It's not high for a big corporation that is doing well. They just want you to think it's high so they don't have to pay and the small fry want you to think it's high because they can't afford it. These are all just line items in a budget.
Once I had that I could pick from anyone who is invested in the ecosystem.
I don't believe that has actually heavily impacted what I am paid in the sense of the credentialing being worth more to individual companies it has just made it easier to get through hiring filters and interview loops. That has made it possible to focus on companies that pay well.
Because strong, senior engineers who have been at the company for a while (say at least 5-6 years) can get total comp that is in the upper six figures when everything is factored in. That's well higher than the vast majority of other employers.
That is exactly why I refuse to negotiate over compensation: I don't want to work with people who have that kind of cheapskate attitude. If they want me, they can express that by making a good offer. If the offer is low, none of the possible reasons are good for me. Why waste time haggling? Better to just move on.
It's frowned upon by (most, not all) employers, but they are legally prohibited from banning sharing of employee salaries (as long as you are sharing your own information, not others). The culture of not sharing salary between employees is more an artifact of American culture to limit discussion of politics, religion, and money to those you are closest to (which has been changing to varying degrees).
Do you have a source for this?
here's the executive order mentioned at the beginning of the linked PDF: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/0...
here's NPR on the topic: http://www.npr.org/2014/04/13/301989789/pay-secrecy-policies...
here's the atlantic on the topic: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/when-th...
From the Atlantic article: Gag rules are a "widespread, illegal problem that the law has failed to address for decades. Gag rules violate a fundamental labor right and allow for discriminatory pay schemes."
---
In the UK, apparently the situation is similar. From http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1811 , "The Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful to prevent employees from having discussions to establish if there are differences in pay. However, an employer can require their employees to keep pay rates confidential from people outside of the workplace."
here is the paragraph of UK law referred to: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/77
The simplest solution for recruiters is to lie. Best case scenario you get a much higher offer. Worse case scenario you have to explain to someone at the job that there must have been a misunderstanding between you and the recruiter (which isn't a lie, as their was a misunderstanding since the recruiter thought you were telling the truth). You never have to lie to the employer.
Right now, employers have far more information than employees, and I don't think this law will do much to change that. To me, it's similar to real estate - imagine if only sellers had access to the database of exactly what every house sold for and when, but buyers had to go with unsubstantiated, scattered rumors. Or vise versa. The side with information would have a monumental advantage.
This law won't do much, if anything, to change the basic dynamic. For what it's worth, I work for a public institution and my salary, and the salary of all my coworkers, is public. The sky hasn't fallen.
If tech companies balk, one approach would be to say that any company using the H1B or other work visas must make all salary information public as a condition of using the visa. After all, if you're experiencing a desperate shortage of workers, it's reasonable for the public to know what salaries you're paying these desperately needed workers in short supply.
My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make.
I also have never told a potential employer my salary. I believe it stopped things from going on to the interview stage but the way they took my refusal made me assume they paid under market rate.
Although in recent years, all lookups are logged and displayed to the other party, which has a chilling effect. I would like the old system back.
Tax records are records owned and controlled by the government. It's information that has already been collected, and is accessible by some institutions, but not others, creating an imbalance in information.
I want government to be transparent, and I generally support initiatives to make information public. But I'm not sure I like the idea of the government or some other big brother type knowing who is accessing what information. I say that as a general principle, with notable exceptions.
IIRC, it's been one of the biggest driving forces in CEO's salaries skyrocketing.
I don't think, however, that it would have a similar effect on our (i.e. employees) salaries.
Why not?
Ah yes, of course, Norway is a rational nation and others are not. For whatever value of "rational" there is. Maybe you mean Norway exceptionally tightening immigration rules after the Swedish terror attacks? Or is it just public reporting of salary you like so much?
Edit: Look at how pay works in countries where such information is public (i.e. Scandinavia). My understanding is that within a given line of work, everyone makes just about the same amount, adjusted for seniority, regardless of performance.
Edit: Thanks
Yes, it's up to me to make sure I'm getting my fair share. If I'm too insecure to get what I'm worth, that seems like my problem, not anyone else's.
Its just america that pays so damn much for developers, because of the competing capital. Price transparency is definitely not harming employees, and its also not harming companies in the long run.
And while average pay is higher in America than in any other large (i.e. necessarily general purpose) economy, I'm specifically pointing out that performance/merit reward is greater in America.
Im sure there are less performant lawyers in america that have a higher pay than performant lawyers in europe. AFAIK high salaries in the U.S. dont come at the expense of low salaries of the low performing.
Doctors have constrained supply. Lawyers have a sort of costrained supply (your degree will determine your employment). U.S. has a peculiar law system and company sizes that allow payouts not possible in other countries which affect pay(corporate lawyers make the most money).
But again, almost surely, this is not due to information asymmetry in favor of the employer. Public wage data would almost unequivocally increase wages. The question would be how much.
Greenspan talks about how in a desire to punish high salary CEO's, they forced their salaries to be public, and they ended up exploding up because of it.
You're right that doctors and lawyers are not great examples for the reasons you state.
If everyone knows what everyone makes, it becomes much harder to give an excellent employee more money. Everyone thinks they deserve a raise, so now a manager has to confront the rest of the team when he gives one person a raise. Envy is a very powerful force.
Performance for this purpose doesn't need to be measured in OneTrueWay, the market provides a better solution: at what point your employer is willing to see you walk to another job instead of paying you more. (They may have their own formal performance ranking system, but if it's not very good they'll lose the battle for talent.) This has the side effect that assertive people are at an advantage, but I don't think that's a bad thing.
As for CEOs, that's a very interesting point. My intuition is that it's a totally different kind of market. The CEO is the boss, not one among many equals. And you can't deny that the information has stirred up animosity and resentment toward the CEO class, however ill- or well-founded that sentiment is.
I think economic modeling moves towards the opposite direction. First, people assume that other people make and still have that envy, and in that assumption they make mistakes. But there are severely underpaid people that would immediately get a better deal.
There are other interesting externality is that knowing what people make would allow people to jump jobs a lot clearer. One of my crusades in public opinion in argentina is that the salaries of college graduates is absolutely unknown, making it impossible to gauge how valuable each college degree is worth. Hence, lots of people commit to dead-end careers. If it were known how much the graduates made, less people would go there, and more people would go to the paying ones.
Same with jobs: knowing other company pays substantially more will move you, increasing the salary of the low paying companies and lowering the salary of the high paying companies.
In a very naive way, the lack of information prevents market efficiency, because if the information where there, people would do more and different trades. And this is algo good for companies in the long run, because they would more effectively attract the appropriate talent.
Think of it as any other market: housing for example. Is housing clearer or worse by having house sale prices open?
The "market solution" only awards to the best negotiators.
Personally I think I've gone a bit deeper in this topic, because I also think that if taxes were public, people with the same job but different tax situation will have a different bargaining position, meaning salaries will be affected by the actual tax rates people pay.
I'm also interested in the visible effects of wealth and income regarding wages: do people with some money in the bank earn more money in general? (would it thus mean that the best investment is to get some cash first ?) etc.
For the more emotional argument, wouldn't public wages also prevent people with lower incomes giving money to higher incomes? Something that happens often is many human relationships where wealth can be hidden? Wouldn't you tip higher to the waitress you know is gaining well below what you think she would, and wouldn you demand more of your boss if you knew exactly how much more they made?
I'm not going to say its strictly better for everyone to have the information public, but I can rarely fathom believing that hiding information leads to better decisions. And isn't that what its all about. At this moment all these objections are a sort of growing pain, not objections for the long term.
I suspect this one has more to do with trying to engage you so that they may sell you more credit.
Similar to how your FICO score is not part of your credit report; it's a separate paid service that the credit unions pay for so they can charge their own customers.
Possible sources of salary info include
Job sites where people review and report on salary at their employer, even if anonymous its super likely that figuring out exactly who you are could be less than rocket science.
Credit reporting agencies.
Bullshit surveys where people answer questions like how much money you make.
Really smart educated guesses based on analyses of known good data from your own and similar employers/employees.
Big employers. As long as the data isn't directly shared with their fellow companies and only in fact with me they stand to benefit from me knowing how much they and their competitor pay so I can recommend the lowest salary an employee is likely to accept so they can minimize cost.
In short your employer doesn't know how much you make but I do and recommend based on that info. Further I can even perpetuate racism and sexism! If minorities and women are currently paid less I can let you know to offer less and still get applicants. If I train a computer to make that determination it can even decide such without me explicitly telling it to and we can blame the algorithm instead of me!
Go technology and go capitalism. High five!
This is of course entirely hypothetical but sufficiently trivial that I find it hard to imagine people not doing it.
> The bill also would prohibit an employer from seeking salary history information about an applicant for employment and would require an employer, upon reasonable request, to provide the pay scale for a position to an applicant for employment.
They're not allowed to try to find out from someone else, either.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
I'm not a lawyer but that doesn't seem to be illegal or even a loophole its out of scope.
While they may have that information, federal laws require them to have you self-report income in regards to credit offers.
Credit agencies measure whether you pay your debts, nothing more.
>My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make.
But have you thought about why you feel this way? I assume you are American, as am I, and so I understand we've been socialized by our culture to feel this way, but it really makes no sense. It's just a way to harm workers by keeping us from seeing when we're being screwed. I'd even go so far as to wager that this entire concept of salary being private was fostered and encouraged by employers for that very reason, because it gives them enormous leverage.
Yes. I don't want to increase my attractiveness regarding a house robbery, as I live well below my means in a developing neighborhood, amongst other reasons.
I very much understand the concept of leverage and have no problems privately discussing my salary amongst groups that I trust. That doesn't include the entire Internet.
And what, hide cash in your mattress?
EDIT: Ah, I see, you were making a snarky joke about them breaking into my house and stealing stuff. I do have nice things in my house, yes, not cash under my mattress. Just because I live below my means doesn't mean I don't have things I wouldn't want them to steal. Expensive laptops, computing resources for work, and, oh, I don't know, just not a fan of people breaking into my house in general regardless of what I have?
They have your address and can quickly get a name from that, and probably find bread crumbs of work history, or that you're a "founder of a sports science" company.
Without even knowing the dollar amount of what you make, there's plenty of info on you that already exists in order to determine if you're a good target.
Yet everyone goes to glassdoor to check salaries.
If you live below your means, why would robbers target you? They don't care how much you make, they care what TV you have.
0: https://qz.com/784186/in-norway-you-can-browse-everyones-tax...
1: http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Norway/Unit...
Seriously though, it's not hard to find targets for this sort of thing by looking at census data and sales records for nice homes, yet it really never happens in the US. WHen was the last time you heard of some random lawyer, ceo, or banker getting kidnapped in the US?
There was a home invasion a couple blocks away.
Lots of people prefer to keep a low profile and not attract these sorts of crimes.
So, I guess a few years ago, I'd say.
But I haven't really bothered to think through any of that, because my point was about kidnapping, which almost never happens in the US. Fewer than 100 people are kidnapped for ransom in the US every year.
Not that it mattered that much, thanks to the hacking of the OPM.
That would require two things, I guess. My name, and the ability to estimate my salary based on the company I run. I am pretty sure even if I told you both you'd miss by a significant amount.
fierro:
I feel like this is kind of silly. Anyone could make a reasonable estimate of your salary based on your job, which is easily discoverable. At least enough to make a decision "should I rob this house." What are we even talking about here?
Thieve's are opportunists, they only question they ask is "how easily can I get into that house without getting caught?".
The entire point is that it's deeply screwed up for you to need to hide your wealth from your neighbors--or from some set of neighbors but not others--for fear of being robbed.
That's not the point of the commenter. Secondly, I reject your summary opinion that lacks evidence, but you are welcome to your own feelings.
Especially with all the factors to consider (neighbors, location, salary, relativity to peers, etc.)
That's a normative statement, not a positive one. I don't consider it at all screwed up or intrinsically wrong to want to hide my income from my neighbors.
And if it is significant, it would probably be worth a lot more than the security cost. Its economically senseless to reject a better job position for the fear that someone might notice your increased income and rob you. For the vast majority of people that would be utterly ridicolous.
As a thought experiment, if we were to add everyone else's information, it's not clear to me that everyone would come out as a winner.
[0]: https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/more-transparency-mo...
Like, if you own your house outright, it's often worthwhile to get a HELOC without ever drawing from it. That way, when an attorney tries to figure out if you're worth suing, it doesn't look like you have six figures worth of housing equity to go after.
You have already decided to not pay for extra security by being in a poorer neihborhood, so we know safety is negotiable. What is that price to you? What if wage transparency increased your salary 10%?
I mean, that's not really true. I live in a poor(er) neighborhood but have cameras, an alarm, and home defense weapons. I still don't want my house being broken into.
>>What if wage transparency increased your salary 10%?
As my other comments (or my bio) will illustrate, these examples aren't too good. I am the founder of a small business who makes my wage public to my employees and offered to make their wages public to everyone, which was overwhelmingly voted down, even when I told them about the benefits.
People value their privacy in this country. It would be a mistake to assume that everyone is stupid for doing so.
Its like when people think that the tax incidence is always paid by the one that writes the check to the IRS, even though economists categorically say thats not how it is.
I am confident that if people had the choice at hand of a 10% increase or privacy, the majority would sell their privacy. We are used to sell it for a lot less than that! Even for a virtually free credit score.
Its an implementational challenge. The IRS can always just disclose everything, so the state can nuke this issue. A lighter approach might be making it opt-out in the future when you are employed: a lot of people would not care, and if you have 30% salary transparency, im sure everyone gets most of the benefit. And a private market approach might be for a site like glassdoor to only show real salary data when people send verified wage documentation.
There are tens of thousands very rich people in any country and nobody robs them specifically, despite only several percent of them using active guards or security. They are robbed with the same chance as anyone else.
If you have jealous and spiteful family you might feel differently. Unless you like hearing sob stories or being blamed for other people's problems.
Some things that are perfectly normal in the US or South Korea or Colombia or China or Japan or Zambia or Saudi Arabia or India are without a doubt not considered acceptable or comfortable in Norway. That's how cultures work. What you're describing is an extension of Scandinavia's culture.
The hours worked in Japan or South Korea are culturally acceptable. They would not be in eg France. One could spend an immense amount of time listing the thousands of famous cultural variances between major nations, in regards to things being acceptable in one place but not in another.
Knowing or not knowing the specific number doesn't change anything with regard to relatives/friends bothering you for money. People who know you see how you live, where you live, etc and know generally where things stand.
You can choose to distance yourself from these people you know?
Blood is no reason to keep these kinds of emotional vampires in your life.
There are practical considerations beyond weird cultural mores.
Compensation is an important conversation to make sure a job is a win/win. I think "What would you like to be paid?" is the most relevant question anyway.
If an programmer makes $100,000 in a company where programmers regularly earn that, it should not be public information. If the programmer is earning $2 million, it may be material to the shareholders to know that depending on the size of the company. If the company is Google and the programmer is regarded as extraordinary for some reason, $2 million (vs Google's overall financial picture) isn't a huge sum. If the entire sales of the company are $30 million, it blatantly would be material.
The most obvious argument against it, is that people aren't always rational (and are regularly irrational about things like money). I'd argue they frequently aren't able to accurately assess their own financial value (in either direction). It opens a pandora's box within corporations about why X person is worth $Z, while Joe or Jane thinks they should obviously be paid more vs X person. It's not easy to maintain harmony within organizations, that would make it far worse.
What would be the value gained from making all individual employee salaries public (within a public corporation)? It would have to be immense to offset the friction it would cause.
Seeing how the right to privacy is not specifically enshrined, I would argue that the reasons for keeping some things private is very much at the heart of the matter. For instance, why does the government not think the benefits of transparency outweigh the disadvantages when it comes to individual reported income, versus say, divorce records (most of which will include income, among many many more private facts said in court).
Like most implied rights, the right to privacy is weak specifically because it is not enshrined. Even the explicitly stated rights have limits, particularly when they butt into the other explicitly stated rights.
When the implied "right to privacy" butts into the 1st Amendment rights of freedom of expression and a free press, on which side do you think the courts will err on, on a consistent basis?
The state has gained an absolute right to know your wage, which one could argue that abolishes the private nature of that information, much like your gender, or your face.
I know plenty of people with cars that cost 10x the price of mine, who earn far less than I do.
And outside of their immediate industry most people don’t know other salaries, or how to look them up.
I've got vague impressions about some family members, friends, and coworkers, but nothing solid (unless I wanted to look up the pay scales for the few with government jobs, I guess). I could probably get accurate answers from close friends if I "needed" to, but it would be an uncomfortable conversation.
Just a unrelated comment. It's funny to hear that. In France there's a widespread stereotype that Americans are very open to talk about their salary.
My parents don’t know my income. My siblings don’t. I know a good bit about my mother-in-law’s income and net worth, but it’s because she is single and has asked for specific financial advice. My parents have recently been going through estate planning paperwork, and I suspect we may have discussions about finances in the next few years.
There are of course exceptions. Within niche hobbies, people may be a little more open after they know each other well about how much goods and services cost, but still not about income. A n00b walking up asking those sorts of questions may still get pushback — depends on how he asked.
I’m on the senior management team for a small technology company, but even though we can all see everything, we don’t discuss each other’s compensation directly and sort of pretend not to know.
> But have you thought about why you feel this way?
Not every family is healthy. Some become _decidedly_ unhealthy as soon as money comes into play, and having precise figures available can be really destructive.
It might work better in more egalitarian societies, where the difference in pay is less to begin with (eg Scandinavia). But that's not a road the US (and many other places) is willing to take.
How? It doesn't change anything with regard to this specific concern about family. They already have an idea about how you live and how much you have from knowing you. They might not have a specific dollar amount, but they'll have a good idea.
That said, I don't think it should be necessary to defend privacy. The idea proposed up-thread is to publish all income data on everybody. Not merely to encourage people to share their income data so they can reduce the information differential with employers, or some central opt-in system to make it easier to compare the numbers. It's about fully _enforced_ transparency.
A proposal for such forced loss of agency needs explanation and must be defensible against scrutiny, not the request to leave people alone just like they're used to.
[0] Among countries of substantial size. Countries that can have their entire economy based around a few niches aren't useful comparisons.
I can see an argument for forcing public companies to post anonymized data about salaries, perhaps including gender, race and age. Thus ensuring employees or advocates can understand if they are being treated fairly. But, My salary is very private. Exposing it means I have less leverage in some negotiations. Not just wage, but sticking with that example, what if employers created a cabal that said "hey, we're not going to give anyone more than a 10% raise for jumping ship to ensure that theres still some incentive, but less, for 'disloyalty.'" This isn't exactly speculation either, there have been numerous reports of companies creating back door policies not to hire away from each other, which ultimately only hurts the employee.
It's not going to benefit me one bit to have my financial arrangements made public. I'm more than happy with the deal I've struck; the company's leverage is not reduced by 3rd parties knowing the numbers.
The biggest capitalist victory has been convincing people that sharing salary information is impolite.
It benefits "the ruling class" in several ways. First it prevents people from realizing they're underpaid and encouraging each other to get better rates. Second it encourages people to spend money on luxury and luxury-ish goods as a way to signal their welloffness to each other.
Because at the end of the day, everyone is still curious about this info and almost everyone likes to feel like they're even just a little better off than those around them. It soothes the ego.
Only on HN, would the same crowd that ferociously defends data privacy, decide to play devil's advocate on this comment.
(Regarding the thread under the parent post)
Trying to gauge the value of this privacy to you, what % of your wage would you be willing to pay for keep it private, or get to make it public?
On the whole you may be right about making salaries public. Norway's made tax return public [1] across the board and the sky hasn't fallen in. Though to be fair in the Norwegian model you find out who has been looking at your salary info.
The counter-argument is that a system like that could allow criminals to target their victims more easily. Kidnappers could steal an SSN or other identifier to scope out victims (without a trail leading back to themselves). I also saw a scary article on HN a week ago about the guardianship industry in FL and how it targets seniors with assets to drain.
1. https://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2016/apr/11/when-it-c...
Salary negotiation as an accountant should be pretty since you know exactly how much people make.
[1] https://lcr-pjr.doleta.gov/index.cfm?event=ehLCJRExternal.ds...
I’m all for empowering employees but this doesn’t seem like quite an improvement.
A single job is simply more vital to an employee than it is to a company, so the company has the leverage.
btw, its not just shortage of "workers". Like it or not.. some h1b workers do have skills that you lack
It's amazing how many of the comments here are making hyperbolic suggestions about all the terrible things that would happen if salary data were public -- considering the data, these comments are not only misguided, but experimentally proven to be incorrect.
It's also important to note that public employee salaries are within a specific domain with specific features. Among the most important: public agencies already have to publish pay schedules, so it's always been possible to guesstimate what someone makes given their job title. And there's the moral argument that citizens have a right to know how their tax dollars are spent.
It's a disastrous idea.
First of all, if you mean public as in "the whole world can know", I can't imagine anyone being comfortable with that. Advertisers, family members, people who don't like you, etc... surely you see the problem here.
If by public you mean "only within the company", even this approach will create resentment and hundreds of hours wasted in discussions and negotiations instead of doing productive work. People will constantly argue that they should be paid as much as "X", and then "X" will complain that she needs to be paid as much as "Y", etc...
As someone running a large organization, this is also a logistical nightmare since I usually have very good reasons to compensate X more than Y even if Y might think they should be paid the same amount.
Back to the topic, I've never cared what someone was paid at a previous employer, mainly because they can lie and there's no way to know. Besides, even as a hiring manager, I really think it's none of my business how much that previous employer valued this person.
What matters is here and now. I just ask people how much they want then I counter with what we're comfortable paying, and then we negotiate.
The only thing from past employers that matter is what the person used to do there.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2016/apr/11/when-it-c...
There are various traits that Scandinavian people also take with them in regards to culture. For example, second and third generation Scandinavian people in the US have been known to do particularly well financially, beyond what the typical person in either America or Scandinavia does.
It's not unique to Scandinavia of course. Japan as another example has their own highly distinct, long established culture that leads them to behave in numerous unique ways vs other developed nations.
Simply put, due to its culture Norway may be entirely comfortable with one of its norms, while few other nations will be. People aren't just people, so to speak, they're products of the cultures they grow up in; the learned and preferred things acquired in that process, tend to be extremely difficult to alter, even under conscious effort.
So what stops you from sharing this 'hidden' metric with Y? If there was some weasel reason X would have never recieved package in the first place if everything was public when he got his package.
Now, the reason X got his comp is therefore sane and you can just explain to Y what he needs to accomplish to reach X:s level.
"John is making $10k more than you because his code is usually higher quality than yours and he has a better attitude".
You closed one can of worms and you just opened five new ones.
If the "you" in this situation never hears that they need to work on their code quality or their attitude, then they'll never know what needs to improve.
In other words, never say "John's code is cleaner than yours", say "I suggest you work on polishing these pull requests".
Normally I talk about this in terms of rubrics for roles and levels. E.g., it's not about Amy versus Betty; it's about how Amy can get from SWE 1 to SWE 2. In the course of that discussion I am totally willing to say, "Pay more attention to the code Betty submits for a code review. She's a solid SWE 2 and you could learn from the way she does X, Y, and Z."
That's the key. I want to know what reasons. It is the best possible feedback for me. If you want to earn X more, you need to do this and that like this colleague does.
It will force management to have better salary policies. I have seen people getting offered almost doubling their salaries when they say that they are leaving. Just because they were badly underpaid to begin with.
Openness forces for better justifications of your actions.
> Besides, even as a hiring manager, I really think it's none of my business how much that previous employer valued this person. What matters is here and now. I just ask people how much they want then I counter with what we're comfortable paying, and then we negotiate.
That's a really good approach. And looks like you are someone that will easily be able to justify the salaries of your hires. But there is a lot of managers that will not, and they will need to get better at their jobs if salaries where open.
See the little role play I offered in my other answer.
It's not always the best possible feedback for you.
First, because you might think the feedback is not justified. Your manager will tell you that other person is better than you according to some metric and you are very likely to disagree. And then what? Anguish, stress on your end. Resentment of your manager, your peers, your job. You'll start losing sleep over this and you'll probably quit because you feel you're not being appreciated.
But assuming the feedback is warranted and you are mature enough to take it as a positive criticism that you're going to work on. You will then probably expect to get that raise that evens out your salary with that other person, but what if you never do? Again anguish, resentment, etc...
There's really hardly any chance anything positive comes out of this kind of transparency.
That is a clear signal that there is a misalignment between my expectations and company expectations. It is important to clarify the point. And to see how it can be resolved so I can offer to the company what it's expected from me.
> Your manager will tell you that other person is better than you according to some metric and you are very likely to disagree.
Maybe it is because "Sweden". But I have had really interesting discussions with my direct reports about this topic when I was a manager. And it was my job to explain what they could improve and to do it in a way that they will understand. You are right that I didn't always manage at the first attempt. But, usually, I was at fault for not giving clear enough metrics.
That's why transparency can improve a company so much. It forces management to be more data-driven and to have better metrics. When a company doesn't know how to set salaries they need to improve.
> But assuming the feedback is warranted and you are mature enough to take it as a positive criticism that you're going to work on.
Do you hire people knowing that they are not able to react positively to feedback? That's a mistake. A non-blaming feedback culture will help the company and employees to improve drastically their skills and output.
> You will then probably expect to get that raise that evens out your salary with that other person, but what if you never do? Again anguish, resentment, etc...
Of course, I will expect to get the same salary if I improve to the point that I'm seen as someone as good as my colleague. Isn't that fair? Isn't that the correct point where the company pays for what it gets, and I get paid for my productivity? What is the reason to not get a salary accordingly to my seniority, expertise and work output?
> There's really hardly any chance anything positive comes out of this kind of transparency.
If the company wants to underpay people and lie to get away with it. It may be seen bad by the company. But it will still be a good thing, because it will force it to improve.
I've said this many times and will say it again, most people's salaries are more closely aligned with their leverage than their output. Now leverage can be value too, so it's a complicated picture to unpack and I won't get into it too much.
People who are benefitting more so from leverage (which tends to be the people with the best salaries) will HATE this move. Salary transparency would take away their leverage and they would have to focus more on their output to justify their high salaries.
Totally agreed. Quite often the reason X gets paid more than Y is that X demanded the money and had the social power to get away with it.
This is, of course, a really bad idea. If one believes in salary as any sort of incentive for specific behavior, then it encourages people being aggressive and demanding. It also encourages people to create situations where they are necessary, irreplaceable, and noticed due to regular heroics. While discouraging people from being polite, unassuming, dedicated team players who work hard to share knowledge, improve truck factor, and invest in long-term sustainability.
This disclosure is a measure put in place to audit some of the spending of the government. Because citizens are compelled through threat of violence or denial of liberty to pay tax it's pretty reasonable for citizens to have access to what their tax money is being used for.
Whatever gets negotiated on hiring in term of variable comp rolls off relatively quickly and then it's up to individual performance. Salary grids remove any curiosity, jealousy and other distractions on that topic for employees. It also avoids a negotiation on hiring, or leaving too much discretion to the employee making the hiring (and possible discrimination).
Lets you still reward performance while eliminating discrimination on hiring.
I just counter this by offering up my Salary during the first few interactions unprompted.
Example:
Hi Mr. Nice Recruiter/Employer,
Thanks for getting in touch. My current position pays X/year and offers (1 very important perk to me).
It sounds like a great opportunity and I would love to learn more ...
See how easy it is? The best will give them the "Premium Pricing" advantage and everyone else will now fight from rock bottom.
I can't wait to see the results in a few years time when meaningful studies have been done.
My prediction:
- Total pay goes down (inflation adjusted).
- It will create a larger gender eage gap since aggressive and ambitious males will game these bullshit red tape.
Date of measurement: December 1 2021.
That's a choice you've chosen to make. Not everyone else would be comfortable with that choice, for a whole lot of (hopefully obvious) reasons.
The sky hasn't fallen.
Just because something doesn't, literally, bring the whole sky crashing down doesn't mean it's a... good idea. Or even not a pretty bad idea.
Are you a schoolteacher? There is a widespread public backlash against the salaries of schoolteachers, which are perceived to be too high. This has dramatically affected the ability to attract good people.
I think that how public perception affects public sector salaries varies from one job to another. The public loves the salary that we pay to our state's college football coach.
People who know or suspect that their salary is above the average applicant's will volunteer it to the prospective employer. Other people will choose not to disclose.
We will reach an equilibrium where non-disclosure will be an honest signal of lower current salary.
The main difference from the current state is that employers won't know the exactly salary of the lower non-disclosing applicants -- this helps people at the absolutely bottom of the 'non-disclosure' range, but hurts those who are just below the average salary. It should have no strong effect on people with above-average salaries who choose to disclose.
Of course, if employers aren't allowed to verify voluntarily disclosed salary, then many people will just lie.
Repeat after me: "Well, taking into account my current schedule for divestiture and estimated market positions I would need X to match my total compensation package."
Bring the data. And I will continue to volunteer my salary information at the very first interactions with my prospective target/clients/employers.
What a joke. This makes it basically easier to appear bold and "transparent" on my side.
Seriously love how these political correct activists keep skewing the playing field to my favor.
edit I am referring to my experience renting apartments from Property Management run communities. (Think Essex or Prometheus) Rent increases every year with them.
https://archives.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/how-renters-work-...
>Depending on the vigilance of the landlord, a seasoned serial evictee like Getzow can get away with a minimum of 45 days and sometimes up to a year of free rent. The actual number of serial evictees operating in San Francisco is difficult to track, but some attorneys who specialize in representing landlords estimate there are between 20 and 100.
I've never rented where I wasn't required to pay first month's rent and a security deposit as well.
Though it would have to be an insanely hot market for this practice to work - vacancy is extremely expensive for a landlord and the margins on being a landlord are fairly low (despite what the guy giving the "I'll teach you to be rich" presentation at the Holiday Inn will tell you). In fact, I've heard of landlords keeping rents to long term tenants a bit under market price just to keep them, I rented for six years without a single rent increase.
Regardless, it's rarely in your own interest to conceal it unless you have privacy concerns.
1. Landlords are going to prefer candidates with higher salaries.
2. It's really unclear to me that landlords use your salary to determine rent increases. e.g. My rent has always been well under what could be covered by my salary and I'd move long before it reaches that point.
It's... optimistic... that you think they're going to take you at face value when you do so, rather than requiring employment / income verification.
And in most cases, "the information on this application is true to the best of my knowledge and I understand that my application may be rejected if I provide false information"...
Here's why I think it's implausbile:
* It's hard for me to believe this practice would be profitable. The revenue would be pretty small (since it only applies to lease renewals, not the initial lease at the advertised price), and it would presumably increase turnover, which is one of a landlord's biggest costs.
* If this is common practice, why is it not common knowledge? It would be clickbait gold, and any two tenants in a big building full of identical units could compare notes and put two and two together, to say nothing of the hundreds or thousands of office workes in property management companies that would have to be aware of it. I looked around for about two minutes and didn't find any articles denouncing it, so it seems likely to be either false or the subject of a remarkably effective cover-up.
Nothing was mentioned on the renter site, and verbal promises (worth the paper they're written on, etc., etc.) made to renters said that they "heavily discouraged arbitrary rent increases as they felt properties were priced fairly in consultation with the owner"...
Meanwhile on the owner / landlord site: "We ensure you get the maximum return on your investment, including yearly rental increases of the maximum allowed by law or as close to it as possible".
Awkward moment for the PM showing me a place when I showed her that website and asked her to reconcile the two positions.
You realize that a lot of people have NO sense of budget and will be DOA the moment they take possession of a rental?
We literally look at the tenants ability to STAY A FLOAT so we do not harm them, their credit and also our pockets too.
You took the most cynical and 1 sided outlook.
There are WAY more people that would get themselves under water (financial and budget illiterate) vs. the situation you describe.
Your bias is betraying you.
They could then contract out as much as possible, including some of the development, back to the parent company.
The net effect would be that you have a handful of project manager salaries in the public eye at the cost of an additional step in the procurement process.
Half of the reason we have one (a wage gap) is because it's taboo in America to reveal how much you get paid with your co-workers. It makes no sense to me why that is the case, all it does it allow the company to screw you over more.
The solutions should be to have each company come up with there own publicly available pay scale that says you make this much and every year it will go up by X as you gain experience. AKA how to government does things, I'm not saying it's the best system, but you know if they are a gs13 step 5 they get paid X dollars regardless of anything.
IMHO, the salary of a job should be based on how much the company is willing to pay to get the job done. It should not be dependent on how much the candidate was getting paid by previous company. What if the previous employer was harassing or taking advantage? how does it matter if I was in my previous job working at McDonald's and getting paid peanuts? Selection of a candidate should be purely based on talent, skills & Merit.
I positively shudder at the thought of a system which coupled my compensation to years of experience. That is in no way a reliable gauge of ability and smart companies know that.
Nor do I want my coworkers knowing what I make. That fosters an atmosphere of competition where anyone who makes less than me is jealous.
Also, from my experience going from meh to top performer boils down to motivation and not skill. Among some other minor things.
While you don't want co-workers knowing what you make, I assume because you think/know you make more than them? what happens when you find out you messed up and everyone you work with makes more than you?
Regardless of that answer as long as wages are taboo to talk about or "fosters competition" there will ALWAYS be a wage gap. whether it's because of conscious or unconscious bias.
And I get it, right know I'm the lowest paid worker on my team, while generally outshining the rest on my skill. I just don't have a degree, and not that much "professional" time in the field. <-- but that's another problem in it's own right.
Not having salary history increases the risk of a bad hire. Hence, I expect offers in general to be lower under such a law to compensate for the extra risk.
"How much is that tomato?"
"$5"
"Yikes. Too much for me. Thanks for your time"
"What did you pay your previous supplier for those tomatoes?"
"$4"
"I will charge you $3.95 and nothing less."
ban the box source: https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/ban-the-box-does-more-har...
Employer to (theoretically) underpaid/under-represented minority: I offer you x.
Underpaid minority: accepted.
Employer to market-rate perspective employee: I offer you x.
market-rate perspective employee: nope.
Employer to market-rate perspective employee: how about X+25K?
market-rate perspective employee: sounds good.
This bill tries to fix a symptom of the problem - but the underlying dynamics causing the pay disparity will remain.
The UC system alone has 250,000 people. Student salary data is the only data anonymized.
Making salary data public is the only way to go. Anything else is a poor half measure that will probably not solve the problem they are trying to address.
The question is asked initially before interviews in most cases and therefore I tell them my expectation is to remain competitive based on what I bring to the table.
Why is it so hard to be a grown up?
if you do the sketchy thing of asking for unverifiable confidential information just to give yourself a negotiation leg-up, be ready to get lied to.
The new law forces an open discussion where both sides can decide what they want to pay/earn and start the negotiation from there. The negotiation then follows the track of who has better opportunities. That is a better market dynamic. It will be interesting to see how this plays out when I look for my next job. :)
I find this a much bigger deal. This gives applicants much more leverage and wastes less of their time. No non-competes in California, and now this.
I told them to f- off.
Employers rarely give a full and true picture of what it's like to work somewhere. It's mostly "everything's great" and "all the people are great" and so on. You might get a bland "we need to work on X" if you press them, but they're very unlikely to be direct about the day-to-day drudgery, dysfunction, etc.
Due to the asymmetrical power relationship of employers/employees, I can't see a real ethical problem with lying in response to a question they shouldn't be asking in the first place.
Also, we should outlaw employers from asking applications their desired salary range; the negotiation should happen after interviews. Employers should either specify a range or give a figure in the job description to save time.
> Also, we should outlaw employers from asking applications their desired salary range; the negotiation should happen after interviews. Employers should either specify a range or give a figure in the job description to save time.
My company's headquarters are registered in Texas, but we have an office in CA that is doing hiring for that office.
Same as above, but hiring someone residing in CA to move to Texas.
Same as above, but hiring someone residing in CA to remote work (in CA or wherever they please).
Then, all three cases, but with a company headquartered Int'l.
Raise money here, then leave if you know what’s good for you. #protip
(These type of policies may be good for employees but are a nightmare for management..)
I understand that this would reduce the benefit on the employer on assymetry of information, but wouldn't it be the best to go the exact opposite direction and try to get all salaries to be public?
Someone's target salary is dependent on their current. Non-savvy negotiators will expose this number.. in which case they aren't going to end up any better.
If you are significantly underpaid, the solution today is just to get two offers to ensure your BATNA is based on an alternative offer, not your current situation.
I suppose this gives more negotiation leverage to the employee, but I don't see it helping Silicon Valley based devs much. It seems the beneficiaries are mainly lower earnings who lack time/ability to source multiple offers.
That's pretty interesting. I wonder how companies are gonna try to circumvent this.
Is it also banned for an applicant to inform the employer of their prior salary? If not, it would appear advantageous for non-below-average-salaried employees to being doing so, negating the effects of this intervention.(And for employers to silently discard applicants which do not voluntarily reveal salary history.)
Which is to say, no, I don't think it'll work out that way.
I guess that means employers will assume you're below average unless you reveal your salary. That would tend to lump all the below-average people into the same salary class as far as the potential employer is concerned.
The recruiter immediately said the job pays $10k less than that.
1) In such scenarios, I wonder how is it okay for an applicant to use all tactics they want (note: there is minimal if not no regulation on applicants to a position. Okay, let's make this concrete, this new law bans Cali employers from asking applicants their prior salary. There are more laws which ban or force an employer to do something. BUT an applicant is NOT banned from asking any question. This next sentence I might be going out on a limb here, the applicant is NOT forced to do something either (as opposed to a ban on something). This is systematic bias.
2) It's NOT okay for a corporation to discriminate on race or sex, etc. But it IS OKAY for an applicant to discriminate on race or sex, i.e. if an employer is black, I can choose not to work for him just on that basis, or if it's a woman, I can choose not to work on that basis.
You might say the positions of power are asymmetric and in favor of the employer. I'd say you're correct about the former (asymmetricity) but not about the latter. The employer has power by having more money and applicant has power by having more skills. Employers usually respond to such laws as this by coming up with new ways to accomplish what they want, then govt responds with even more regulation. Compliance is a cost which takes away from the pie which any of the stakeholders could've benefited from.
A voluntary unregulated hiring market would benefit all parties involved.
I've also come to expect that I'm going to give a candidate a pay range as well. It is one of the first things I do when trying to on board because if they can't afford to live on the range I'm telling them then I don't want to waste either of our time on discussing a position they can't live on. I'm pretty upfront about this because the worst thing an employee working for me can do is have to start budgeting a lot and be resentful about it.
In my mind this law can really hinder that conversation. I like giving a range and asking a candidate if they can deal with that, but it's really nice when a candidate is secure enough to tell me what they are worth up front as well. I would also recommend against giving anyone a fixed value always always give a range.
Employers in California are now required to do so upon request, so be prepared.
My bottom range is expecting a bonus of 10-20%, Medical, 4 weeks vacation 4% matching 401k, Paternity leave of at least a month etc.
These are things I take into consideration if you don't have that expect to see the higher end of my range.
That sounds like you are actively exaggerating the amount you have been paid previously to establish a "baseline" of what you are willing to accept as a minimum salary in the job you're applying for. Anyways, from what I understand, the new law does not seem to prohibit you from asking for a salary (range) that the applicant would be willing to accept, just from asking for how much specifically they made in the past.
This is a very good point. It's a fine line but I appreciate the input.
I do give a rather large range. It's typically a 20-40% range based on how much I want the job. And I tailor it to every employer.
I wish people would stop perpetuating this myth. Bonus is discretionary (meaning they can give you $0) while salary is not. Salary is a BIG part of your compensation package because that is the primary reason people work. Most would work for salary without medical but not the other way around. Claiming salary is small potatoes is just one of the more insidious things companies and their agents will spit at you to justify paying you less. Don't fall for it!
It is not a myth. If the company pays out then you make more money. It isn't GUARANTEED salary but neither is stock. Sure it's not worth every dollar they say you might get but it does have a value based on the history of the Company. I've done very well for myself going with a slightly lower salary and accepting a 2x1 ratio on the bonus. I.E. If they offer 100K. I'll accept 90K and a 20K bonus (this advice very much depends on the company). If the company has a history of giving out their minimum bonus every year then you're probably OK. If it's a startup that ratio would go up. 3x1 or 4x1. It's more of a risk so don't take it all on yourself.
Medical can be up 500 per month per person in your family for a fully covered company. 401K can also be a great tool as well.
This is 100% why I suggest giving a range of salaries. Take the bonus at what it's worth to you. Just like stock. It is not a 1 to 1 relationship but it does add value. If you just assume you make what you get in your salary you aren't doing the real math of evaluating what you are really worth.
For that matter factor in commute too! It's time you are away from home.
You missed a major point in what I do when I'm being hired. I use benefits like a bludgeon. I get MORE money because of the variety of benefits I've seen over the course of my career. While looking ONLY at salary is simpler to compute and categorize people, that simplistic look at things will reduce your ability to negotiate and get the most out of future opportunities.
Employers should compensate interviewd candidates for their time at a rate equivalent to the position for which they are interviewing.
So...
No. It is toatally not like that and hopefully such a law will help clarify the point to any who miss it.
Such a law will also provide balances in an unbalanced power situation and enforce economic efficiencies on an inefficient process.
I'm not a lawmaker nor an employer, though, so I'll leave the suggestion for someone else to pick up.
(twice, btw, once because the negative externalities of "the interview process" are not negligible, and second because the power dynamics of said process are just wrong)
Are there no negative externalities of trying on clothes?
Employers take huge hits interviewing candidates (namely the interviewer's time); I don't see this being a problem that needs to be solved.
The only reason to ask this question is to use it to determine a baseline of how low you can pay the applicant, and unfortunately a lot of young job seekers don't know that it is best to refuse to answer that question.
transparentcalifornia.com
I understand why people do this but holy shit that is obnoxious.
EDIT: UC Coaches some of the highest paid people in the state... sigh.
according to the language in the bill, employers don't seem to be allowed to use those types of Equifax products anymore.
"However, if the applicant “voluntarily and without prompting” provides this information, the employer may use it “in determining the salary for that applicant.”"
...as long as you don't give it out yourself.
Any employer in California that does this will get taken to the cleaners.
It's possible Equifax would too now, so they probably won't give this information to CA employers.
Personally, I would want to do a credit check on a CFO or controller because if they can't manage their own finances how can they manage the businesses.
Edit: I think I misunderstood the new law proposed here. It is not even legal for employer to ask the salary of past job. In that case this situation would not even occur.
Even if they weren't, I don't see any real trouble with your scenario (other than that I think establishing a pattern of lying in a relationship so early probably isn't great). But if my last job underpaid me, and now I want to earn market rate... I'd be grateful to not have to answer questions about my previous salary.
Also, your hypothetical situation is happening already.
Lawyers: what are the chances this goes to the Supreme Court? I suspect next to none, since it's just CA, and employers don't care enough about free speech to fight it.
Silver lining: Another straw in the pile to split CA.
And they did this to improve the gender wage gap? People who don't negotiate will be stuck with their same salary year over year, while those that negotiate will have steadily increasing salaries.
People need to get over the fear that they'll lose their offer if they negotiate. The potential employer has already put in a lot of time (and money) to get to the offer stage; they're not going to rescind the offer just because you ask for more ("That amount isn't going to work for me; I was looking for something more like $(1.1X)"). At worst they'll tell you that they can't go any higher than the original offer, and then the decision is entirely up to you.
"Accept or GTFO" is a risk you run when negotiating. But it's better than just saying nothing and accepting whatever low-ball offer they give you first, and it costs you nothing to at least do a bare minimum of negotiating.
It really is as simple as saying "I don't think that amount will work for me; I was looking for something more like $X". I mean it: just that sentence alone. Don't demand or be a dick about it, and don't appear meek as if you're asking for a handout, and don't try to justify it with a "I have mouths to feed" or "I'm saving for a house" or whatever. Just state it, and see what happens. That, or something similar, has gotten me a better offer literally every time I've tried it, and I'm honestly probably an average negotiator, at best. It might not get you exactly $X, but that's what a compromise is: meeting somewhere in the middle.
I dunno, since the law requires employees to disclose salary ranges to applicants on request, the rule “apply only if (new position salary) > (current salary)” seems to not require negotiation.
OTOH, disclosed ranges from emloyers but no disclosed salary from employees makes salary negotiation a lot easier for employees, too. I don't think the gender wage gap is because women refuse to negotiate, though it's probably at least in part because, in the status quo, they come into it in worse position because of, among other factors, salary history.