re: Why are people so secretive about their salaries?

quote:

---

I always thought it bred unnecessary hostility in the work place amongst salaried individuals. I've had tenured direct reports that did the bare minimum and depended on longevity for raises. I've also had direct reports that busted their asses for raises and bonuses. Sometimes those people were on the same level. Capitalism rewards those that create the most value. If you're unhappy you have the ability the find a new profession that will reward you.

---

This. Often the differences aren't huge in the scheme of things but they exist for good reasons. Any organization that fails to reward its performers is probably not going to be successful. Funny that you have people downvoting this. I guess it is the times we are living in.

quote:

---

those underpaid and deserving ended up getting big raises

---

You answered your own question

Companies don't want you to know Sussie, who sits on her arse all day, makes twice what you do because she sucked the bosses dong

Management doesn't like for people to discuss their salaries because they want to pay each employee as literal as possible while having as few difficult conversations with under performing employees as possible.

When salary information is shared within an organization, it gives high performers leverage and makes low performers whine to management.

Definitely will cause issues at workplace. Just focus on your career progression and stay out of the comparison game. Someone will always make more. Also lots of people making way more than they should but they will eventually get exposed.

Hospitals were notorious for screwing their experienced nurses back when I started in the 70’s and they strongly discouraged discussions of salary.What they would do is bump up salaries to compete with other hospitals for new grads and the older,experienced nurses would get screwed. When I started new grads would be making more money than nurses with 5 or more years of experience and would be acting as our preceptors.
Eventually hospitals had to put in equitable salary schedules.

Because not everywhere is some shite going to go down to where the underpaid will get a raise and the end it will just cause a hardship to those who are underpaid.

quote:

---

A better measure of a persons financial status is their credit report.

---

Credit reporting does not reflect on ones financial status, it is a reflection on how one manages debt. A person who has a paid for house, paid for cars, paid for toys, etc etc is in a better financial position than someone with a $350k mortgage, 70k truck loan, 70k car loan for the wife, 30 year $100k boat loan.. etc etc

Also, there really needs to be a mechanism to mitigate the damage of a medical emergency and how it damages your credit score. Even with health insurance, even a short term medical emergency can cost tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars plus you factor in lost income, it can give someone credit hell for 7 years. People might even have disability insurance to cover, but they don't pay out fast, if at all, with all the loopholes they have.

quote:

---

No way. I'm sporting an 815 credit report and in no way do I consider myself wealthy.

---

It has nothing to do with income. Length of credit, payment history, revolving account balances etc determine this. You can make 25k per year and have an 800 credit score.

quote:

---

For the reason you cited... Companies don’t pay everyone the same and shouldn’t have to imo.

---

Agree. A surprising number of people think they should be making the same as others who have much longer seniority, maybe a high level title, etc. They don't seem to understand why someone might be paid more than them.

quote:

---

Companies don’t pay everyone the same and shouldn’t have to imo.

---

Most of the time, salaries are based on the market conditions when you’re hired.

If it’s slow in your industry, you will probably be underpaid because there are more people looking for work. If it’s extremely busy, they will have to overpay to get people to fill their needs.

During yearly raises, most corporate people will dole out 4-5% pay raises on average.

So, if, say, you’re hired at 50K in 2015 during a down time in your industry, and get 5% bumps each year, you will be around 64K now. However, if work has picked up tremendously in your sector, and they need people, they may offer someone 70K or more to someone with lesser experience than you to get them in the building. You then have salary discrepancies across the company.

You may have a good boss that realizes this and keeps you where you should be salary-wise, but most of the time they won’t proactively do this.

I once came across my group’s salaries and it was comical on what some people were paid for what they could (or could not) perform.