The problem is, it's not just a signal of your economic value to companies.

It's also a signal of:

* Your past skill at negotiation

* Any past economic disadvantaged background or discrimination

It's also just dirty pool: employers seek to shame / threaten employees to not share compensation data (and, in circumstances where state laws do not prohibit this, terminate employees for discussing comp), and then want to have all the data themselves. It creates a very tilted negotiation field.

If you have poor negotiating skills, hiding your salary history isn't going to help any. What is going to help is making an effort to learn how to do it. A relatively small effort can yield lifetime benefits.

> If you have poor negotiating skills, hiding your salary history isn't going to help any

This is false. If you have poor negotiating skills, and likely a low salary history to go with it - the prospective employer will low-ball your initial offer based on asymmetric knowledge. If they have no idea how much you earned, and are judging you on your skills and experience alone, the initial offer will most likely be a higher number much closer to market salaries. Even if there is zero negotiations and the candidate accepts the first offer, the outcomes are completely different.

> This is false.

That's rather presumptive. If the candidate did not disclose his salary history, the obvious assumption is that it is not a positive, and the candidate will get a lowball offer.

> are judging you on your skills and experience alone

It never works that way. They'll be judging you on what you chose not to reveal, too. Other examples:

1. if you say you have a degree, but are silent about from where, the assumption will be it is not Stanford. The assumption will be it's from a degree mill, or worse, you're lying about the degree.

2. if you didn't submit SAT scores to the admissions dept, the assumption will inevitably be that they are poor scores.

> If the candidate did not disclose his salary history, the obvious assumption is that it is not a positive, and the candidate will get a lowball offer.

I disagree that this is the obvious assumption[1]. Even if I were true, it seems to me like your prior is all lowball offers are the same. They are not. If a candidate was underpaid, an uninformed "lowball" (from prospective employers PoV) would be much higher than if they knew the candidates previous salary was about half of their budget.

1. My salary is above average, but not an outlier,but I will not disclose my salary history before getting an offer. I will not disclose it after getting an offer, even if it's too low for my liking. The only number that matters is the one I am willing to accept. If you share your salary history, you may be lowballed an not even know it. "Anchoring" is a well-studied phenomenon - anchoring on your past salary may leave you underpaid relative to the rest of the market (or your colleagues).

Yes, but you're saying that even if someone improves, a rational actor will use the signal of the history of poor negotiation to collude with others to pay that person less.

And you can demonstrate that you are worth a higher salary and not accept less.

Surely you understand the entire argument, including parts you glossed over:

> It's also just dirty pool: employers seek to shame / threaten employees to not share compensation data (and, in circumstances where state laws do not prohibit this, terminate employees for discussing comp), and then want to have all the data themselves. It creates a very tilted negotiation field.

I have done quite well for myself. But I am concerned that this is one more way that the field is tilted against disadvantaged groups. Past history of being discriminated or of screwing up negotiation stays with you indefinitely, and that's not great. The data asymmetry is not great, either.

Peoples' personal financial information should not be aggregated and shared with employers without their consent.