How much money do you make? ‘œI make enough,’ she said.
I’ve asked this question before: how often do you hear a talk-show host ask a movie star how much money they made on their last film? Rarely. Why? Because money is still considered a taboo topic and it doesn’t play well on the circuit of celebrity chatter.
‘œSalary stories are intrusive. Do you ask your neighbor what they earn for their job?’ That was a quote by Nicole Kidman. Even Howard Stern, who will talk about almost anything, has said before, ‘œI don’t talk about my salary.’
But on Sunday, I learned that Gen Y is all about revealing what they make. The New York Times reported that personal finance is not so personal anymore. In this Facebook era, nothing is too private to be shared amongst friends and co-workers:
For people old enough to remember phone booths, a blunt reference to salary in a social setting still represents the height of bad manners. But for many young professionals, the don’t-ask-don’t-tell etiquette of previous generations seems like a relic.
For them, salary information is now fair game, at least among friends. Many consider it crucial to prosper in an increasingly transient, winner-take-all workplace ‘” regardless of the envy that full disclosure can raise. Besides, when the Internet already offers a cornucopia of personal information, it almost seems coy to keep personal income private.
Or does it? Anita Bruzzese, the author of 45 Things You Do To Drive Your Boss Crazy’¦and How to Avoid Them, appears to be about my age and the topic seems to make her cringe:
In a live radio interview last year about my book, the host asked me: ‘œSo, Anita, how much do you make writing your syndicated workplace column?’
Thankfully, you couldn’t see my reaction, because I have a feeling my face sort of resembled a landed halibut. But after a moment’s hesitation, I answered him in a round, ballpark-figure-sort-of-way.
But Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist fame believes there isn’t anything wrong with asking co-workers how much money they make. In fact, she encourages it: ‘œDon’t be shy because everyone else is asking too.’
Or are they? One Frugal Girl (who is thirty) had something to say about this topic. She writes:
The topic of income is usually taboo, but I bet almost everyone has been asked about their salary at least once in their lives. In college my friends and I talked openly and honestly about money. We discussed increasing book costs, rent, and utilities. I even remember celebrating the 15 cent raise of one of my roommates. No one objected to talking about money when we were working in low-paying, part-time jobs, but it seemed no one wanted to discuss salaries when we started our ‘˜real jobs.’ When graduation dates neared a few of my friends discussed their starting salaries, but most kept their new incomes to themselves.
In my twenties I still remember discussing income with my friends. But at some point in my early thirties it stopped. On both sides: Friends stopped offering this information, I stopped asking and vice versa. I recall a close friend once mentioned that she was interviewing for a job promotion and the package was over $300,000. We never talked about income after that. I felt like I couldn’t keep up (so I didn’t really want to talk about it) and perhaps, it just seemed in poor taste to be disclosing these details’¦ even with a close friend.
But our sister, Suze Orman, god love her’¦ made a great point during an appearance on ‘œThe View’ last year by asking her co-hosts and other guests to reveal their salary on the air. Nobody took her up on the challenge. But Suze thinks people should share salary figures as a way of fighting income disparity and level the playing field.
It seems younger workers seem to have less of problem with all this transparency. Fogies tend to be more discreet. After all, I was never one to kiss and tell’¦ unless it offered up good money fodder.
So back to you’¦ If someone asks how much you make, do you tell them? If you comment below, then please tell us your age or at least what generation you belong to: Gen Y, Gen X or a Baby Boomer.
I’m more-or-less comfortable discussing my income with folks I feel are, or should be, on a level playing field with me–my sister who works in sales, for example. But NOT with folks I know to be living on lower incomes–my sister the social worker or my father the pastor. So the answer is always, it depends who’s asking.
That being said, in the workplace, many employers have strict written policies about salary disclosure between co-workers (for tedious but obvious reasons), so even those who are willing and comfortable with disclosure should tread carefully there.
AmyMo–GenX
Gen Y-er here.
My parents were very tight-lipped about money, to the point where I very nearly went without financial aid because they didn’t want to give me the tax information I needed to fill out the FAFSA. I always thought I’d go in the opposite direction, but now I refuse to tell people what I make, and here’s why.
I am a graduate student on fellowship. My colleagues are also on fellowship, and we are well aware that everyone’s fellowship package is different. There is a tacit agreement not to discuss the contents of those packages. This helps limit jealousy and resentment, but that’s not really why we do it. The thing is, the quality of a person’s financial aid package is a reflection of the university’s confidence in that person’s academic ability. None of us want to find out that we’re at the bottom of that ranking, so we just don’t ask.
I might discuss my income with people outside of academia, but I really don’t see the point. It doesn’t matter how much I make – it matters how I use it, and with my financial habits I see myself living a much better lifestyle than those I know make quite a bit more than me.
I work for a public university, so my salary info, along with everyone else’s, is freely available to anyone who asks. It’s been that way long before the Facebook generation hit the workplace.
Many of my friends are coworkers, and I absolutely wouldn’t share my salary, nor would I want to know theirs. I’m fairly sure we’re all paid about the same (except of course when a person has been here a lot longer), but if we’re off by a fair amount I’ll feel mad/guilty (depending on if I’m higher or lower) and it would affect how I feel about my company.
However I fully disclose with my siblings and am willing to discuss it with other friends as well, if we’re sharing – AND if I think we’re about level. It’s a little awkward but I’m trying to break down the taboos, and how else but to lead by example?
I was recently agonizing about a big financial decision and was happy to be able to have a frank discussion about income and outgo with a friend in another city. Having his real-life, full-disclosure information helped me a LOT more than vague hazy numbers would have.
(I’m 30, so I’m right on that Gen X/Gen Y cusp.)
It totally depends on the context.
If you’re asking around at work, I think that’s fair. If someone with the same tenure and title as you is making a lot more, wouldn’t you want to know that? Or you’d want to have some idea of what to expect/demand when you get promoted. Yeah, you don’t want a disparity to cause tension with your co-workers or in your working environment, but if it goes on too long, it’s too late to really do anything about it. That’s money you’re passing on because you are too embarrassed to ask the question.
If you’re talking amongst your friends… here’s the thing. People make judgments about you and how you spend your money when you tell them how much you make. So keeping that info to yourself keeps them from judging, and probably impacts whether/how often they hit you up for donations to their pet causes.
That said, I never ask people how much they make. I’m trying to remember when anyone besides my partner even asked me and I can’t think of anything. Whether or not I answer the question if asked will depend on why I perceive they’re asking.
I am totally willing to disclose my income because I am unionized, and so everybody at my office makes the same amount, or did when they started. I also feel pretty well-paid among my friends, so that helps. I do similar work as many (paralegal at a nonprofit law firm), but only my firm is unionized, and sometimes I like to push it that unions can be really helpful.
I am 27 and I never thought to ask my coworkers what they were making until I was up for a promotion and a raise last year. I started doing research to find out what other people in similar positions at different nonprofits were making, and I found out I was well below the norm. Then to top it off, the two coworkers I asked were hired a year after I was and I was responsible for creating the programs that they were staffing. They were both well above what I started at. It made me angry, but not at them. I was angry with myself for not knowing better and fighting for more money from the beginning.
I think that as women, we are often times loathe to negotiate for a higher salary. In fact, a study out of AZ State Univ last year showed that women are half as likely as men to negotiate for higher salaries. Couple that with being fresh out of college, and a $28,000 salary looks great. Especially if you’ve been used to living on less than $10,000 in college. I think that there should be classes offered for people before they graduate to teach them how to negotiate salary.
I’m so glad I asked what my coworkers were making. It gave me the kick in the pants that I needed to demand what I was worth.
I’m much more comfortable volunteering salary information than I am being asked about it. If someone asks me how much I make, I tend to suspect an ulterior motive, and want to know what it is. At work, I assume that my colleagues salaries roughly fit in with the salary structures of the industry jobs that I see advertised – this means that I’m reasonably comfortable volunteering ballpark salary figures (to the nearest couple of thousand or so).
I share my salary/benefits info with close friends, my parents, and my career mentor.
I made a mistake by sharing my ballpark range with my older roommate/landlord after he asked point-blank. He makes half-jokes that I’ll be making more than him in a few years, and it’s incredibly awkward for me.
When I received a low-ball salary offer from a potential employer, he said, “That’s a good salary range for someone your age. You should take it, you were overpaid at your last job anyway.”
Excuse me?
I’m a boomer, and I don’t reveal my salary to anyone. My parents were unionized school teachers, so their salaries were publicly available(*). In principle I think people would have greater bargaining power if everyone’s salaries were known, but in practice too few people are willing to do that, and revealing my salary without reciprocity puts me at a disadvantage.
A big reason we don’t do so is that it is not in the employer’s best interest and so they tend to encourage the trend to secrecy. The other problem is that not everyone uses the same means of telling whether salaries are fair. There is no one true way of determining the salary each person deserves. Given that fact, making salaries public need not promote fairness, since reasonable people can disagree about what ‘fair’ is.
(*) You’d need to know how much education they had and their years of service to know exactly, but you could make a very good guess.
Gen X. I work for a big lawfirm and our compensation is public knowledge, as is for the major law firms around the country. So I got used to talking about income with work friends. I also don’t mind giving this information to my parents and siblings, but with people other than co-workers and family members, I’m more discreet as I don’t want want to seem rude.
I don’t talk about my salary unless it’s with my live in boyfriend or my best best friends and family. I just started working, and I’m only 24, so a lot of my friends have different professions and are just working. I feel we do not talk about our salaries, but we talk a lot about being broke. Being new grads, we are all struggling to survive the work force, and it’s not about how much we make, but how we are surviving.
Well I went back to work after retiring and its a unionised shop…in Florida..about as toothless as you can get.
Everyone gets the same whether their good, bad, or indifferent…so most of them are indifferent.
I went back to work for several reasons…Bored out of my Mind after 4 months. They have Health Insurance thats reasonable…(Hey!! I retired at 48 and I’m 51 now!!) and I’m a long way from Medicare…..And I have to have EARNED Income to keep putting money into the IRA’s. Capital Gains, Interest, and Dividends are classed as UNEARNED Income as far as that goes.
And don’t get me started about a 401K…the toothless union left it on the table in the last contract negotiations and when I B*tch about getting one set up the company says see the union and the union says its up to the company….smells like a month old fish dipped in Limburger cheese to me.
Anyway among the 60 or so that work at the particular location I’m assigned too I seem to be the most well off and I DON”T discuss what I’m worth but that hasn’t stopped them from trying to hit on me for loans…it seems that just having a couple of hundred in the wallet is enough to set them sniffing around though they’ve finally gotten the hint that NO means NO!!!!!!.
~ Roland Tail end of the Boomer Gen.
Interesting that this post happened to fall around payday. Ahhh… but we’re not talking about that! Or are we?? I guess we are: thanks for all the excellent comments! A few things that caught my eye…
AmyMo: Great point about it depending on the person doing the asking. I follow that general rule as well. I stopped telling one of my sisters how much I made because at the time she had given up her career to stay home with her young children and money was tight. I could tell she wasn’t interested in hearing about my last commission check.
Bethh: I agree that the co-worker scenario is tricky. I’m sure the mad/guilty part is why most employers discourage the practice of sharing amongst employees.
Erica: I couldn’t agree with you more about getting hit up for the pet causes!
Serena: You make a good point about women and negotiating skills. Knowledge is power and the more we know the value of our worth, the better we can negotiate fair compensation.
A.J.: Funny story! That guy sounds like an a–hole.
Roland: Love the “toothless” part! And I find it interesting that co-workers don’t have any issue with trying to hit you up for loans. Hold on to that wallet!
Gen Xer here. I have no qualms about sharing my salary and feel that sharing information leads to power.
I work where it is taboo to share salary information- in fact, when we are hired, we are supposed to sign off on never sharing salary information. When I joined on, I refused to sign the statement. I basically was a real pain to the HR person involved- asking questions about how corporate agenda trumped freedom of speech in this instance, and how my tax person couldn’t help me by my vow of silence and what implications this would have in budget planning with my partner (how can you budget when you can’t talk about what you make?). Eventually, I wrote a statement on the paper advising that I was not necessarily going to comply with the rule due to my personal conviction.
Fast forward a few years- the company was getting a lot of flack from nurses employed here (me included) that we were not making competitive wages. Supposedly, a market study was performed and HR with our immediate supervisor was to meet with each individual and review the results. I went in and was told that the study showed we were being compensated appropriately. I demanded to see the study results and to see the specific information as it applied to my job. Nothing could be produced, but they wanted me to sign off on my agreement. I again refused- wanting the data first. A week later, I was again brough into a room and suddenly I warranted a sizable raise– supposedly further review of my job history against the “data” revealed need for right sizing my salary. “But please sign this statement!” To which I again constructed my own statement I would agree to– that I had seen no true data, that I had no idea what they were basing the salary change on , etc.
I have since told this story (its been about 5 years) to many co workers about the bill of goods they try to sell us about salaries. No one from the time it happened is even left to dispute how I got the hush money.
This past Christmas time, I also made no bones about how p.o.’d I was that at 11 years at this company as a professional, my family qualified for Christmas Bureau food and gifts! Guess who got a decent enough raise this spring? 15% more cash, baby!
DivaJean: I like that: “right sizing” your salary. Good for you!!
DivaJean – bravo! They feed us the same thing at work, I might just have to ask them for the data this time around 🙂
Sarah – your arguments are nothing new and that’s what this post is all about.
Me – mid 20s, graduated last year with a masters degree in engineering field, work for a high-tech company in midwest with salary in mid 60s. I busted my behind all these years in college and I don’t feel bad talking about this. Only one of my friends in refused to talk about his offer, everyone else was even more open than myself.
I don’t mind telling people how much I make as long as I don’t think it would make them feel bad or judge me. My income used to be below poverty level, but now it is about 40% of the median income. So I still make very little, and to some people that makes me unimportant, but I do make more than many of the people I work with. It’s hard to complain that I don’t have enough money to pay for a nice place of my own when my coworkers make much less than I do. It probably sounds like I am really irresponsible if I can’t make ends meet with the hundreds and hundreds of dollars I make each year.
I think it will always be hard for people to really openly discuss salary unless we have a sweeping societal change that manages to eliminate the correlation between salary and human value. Even then it would still be difficult: We’re exchanging our lives, hour by hour, for money, and finding that my hours are only worth $14 apiece, but my best friend’s hours are worth $30, is not a pleasant realization. I work just as hard, or harder, but I get less–why?! Because my work is less important? Because I’m replaceable? It’s a huge thing to talk about. I can see why people want to avoid it.
PS: I’m in my late 20s (and some of the people at my work have been there since I was 4 or 5 years old, but they only earn about 60% of what I now earn–why?).
I found out I was underpaid because of a coworker talking about salary. My company was paying a guy who had no experience more money than me .. and I had a master’s degree, and was doing his work because he couldn’t handle it. People should talk about salary to help level the playing field. I got a raise pretty quickly.
Gen X here …