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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Especially with all the factors to consider (neighbors, location, salary, relativity to peers, etc.)
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 live below your means, why would robbers target you? They don't care how much you make, they care what TV you have.
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.
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.
So, I guess a few years ago, I'd say.
0: https://qz.com/784186/in-norway-you-can-browse-everyones-tax...
1: http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Norway/Unit...
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.
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.
Yet everyone goes to glassdoor to check salaries.
Not that it mattered that much, thanks to the hacking of the OPM.
Thieve's are opportunists, they only question they ask is "how easily can I get into that house without getting caught?".
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
There are practical considerations beyond weird cultural mores.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[0] Among countries of substantial size. Countries that can have their entire economy based around a few niches aren't useful comparisons.
>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.