[HN Gopher] Employers use your personal data to figure out the l...
___________________________________________________________________
Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary
you'll accept
Author : thisislife2
Score : 418 points
Date : 2026-04-06 00:29 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.marketwatch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.marketwatch.com)
| anonymars wrote:
| One (more) thing to opt out of:
|
| Freeze Your Data - The Work Number
| https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze
|
| As I understand it, payroll whores your salary out to Equifax*,
| who then pimps it to others
|
| * Yeah, that one:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Equifax_data_breach
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| I hate that I have to opt out of this stuff that I never signed
| up for and never would have. I filed the request to freeze, and
| see that it will require me uploading many more pieces of data
| to prove identity and address. Disgusting.
| EarthAmbassador wrote:
| If the credit bureaus don't have a complete profile when you
| start, they will after provide the missing pieces.
| falcor84 wrote:
| I really wouldn't be surprised if that is indeed the goal
| defined for that workflow's design.
| lateforwork wrote:
| No they sell it directly:
| https://theworknumber.com/solutions/industries/pre-employmen...
|
| The Work Number is in fact Equifax.
| xvxvx wrote:
| I worked for Equifax many moons ago. They had a problem with
| people taking jobs there that no one else wanted, solely to
| gain access to their systems and reset their own credit scores.
| And, for some reason, they couldn't roll it back once found
| out. Great company.
| justaboutanyone wrote:
| How does that work with multiple credit agencies?
| xvxvx wrote:
| No idea, it was back in the mid to late 90's.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Many banks are known for pulling from a particular one.
| Gud wrote:
| Life hacks for the 21st century
| OptionOfT wrote:
| I'm filling out the form there. I genuinely don't know why I
| would ever generate a salary key so I can let someone know how
| much money I made.
|
| Also, to prevent them from sharing the information, you need to
| give them even more information. Disgusting that this is
| allowed.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| American Express just canceled my wife's card after 15 years
| because she didn't fill in her salary data.
| Terr_ wrote:
| Hmmm, so if it's a low value and they leak it to employers,
| that could screw you in compensation for a future job...
| And if it's a high value, the credit card company might
| argue you were lying to them for a higher credit limit.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > I genuinely don't know why I would ever generate a salary
| key so I can let someone know how much money I made.
|
| I value my financial privacy as well, but when I go to
| someone to ask to borrow a million dollars to buy a house, it
| seems reasonable that I'm going to have to give them some
| information pertinent to assuring them I'm likely to and
| capable of paying them back.
| OptionOfT wrote:
| Well, then how did I get a mortgage with the whole thing
| being empty?
|
| W2s are perfectly fine.
| putlake wrote:
| Thank you for the link. I tried to opt out. They sent me this
| email:
|
| Equifax Workforce Solutions (provider of The Work Number) has
| received your employee request communication, but additional
| information described below is required to fulfill this
| request.
|
| We will be following up with a secure email to obtain the below
| requested documents:
|
| Proof of Identity:
|
| Provide a copy of one of the following (must include
| current/legal name):
|
| - Driver's License (must be current) - Paystubs (must be dated
| within 60 days) - State or Government Identification Card (must
| be current) - Social Security Card - Military Identification
| Card - Passport (must be issued from U.S.A. and be current) -
| W-2 or 1099 Form (most current year) - Birth Certificate
|
| Proof of Address:
|
| If you are requesting an Employment Data Report (EDR) or
| selected 'Mail' as your preferred method of contact,provide a
| copy of one of the following (must include current mailing
| address and be issued within the past 60 days)
|
| - Driver's License (must be current) - Paystub - W-2 or 1099
| Form (most current year) - Utility Bill (phone, water, gas,
| electric, trash or sewer, etc.) - Housing Rental Agreement or
| Mortgage document - your name must be listed on the document
|
| For Identity Theft Block Requests, along with Proof of Identity
| and Proof of Address (if applicable), please provide your
| identity theft report and designation of items to be blocked:
|
| - Identity Theft Report (police report, FTC Identity Theft
| Report, Police report, or United States Postal Inspection
| Service)
|
| For Human Trafficking Victim Block Requests ONLY, along with
| Proof of Identity and Proof of Address (if applicable), please
| provide victim determination documentation (as described
| below), and designation of items to be blocked.
|
| Victim Determination Documentation:
|
| Provide a copy of one of the following victim determination
| documentation confirming that you were a victim of human
| trafficking, such as:
|
| - Determinations made by federal, state, tribal, or local
| governments, government agencies, or law enforcement -
| Determinations by non-governmental entities or task forces
| authorized by a governmental agency to make such a
| determination - Self-attestation signed or certified by such
| governmental agency or non-governmental entity - Determination
| by court in a case where a central issue is whether you are a
| victim of human trafficking. (Court documents can be made up of
| several documents from the court case that together show that
| the court accepted as true or finding no genuine dispute that
| you were a victim of human trafficking.)
|
| We will be following up with a secure email to obtain the
| requested documents.
|
| Data Investigation Team Equifax Workforce Solutions
| saghm wrote:
| Obviously they have to be careful. What if they didn't check
| all this and someone went and tried to opt out on your
| behalf? That would be an incredible invasion of your privacy!
| ornornor wrote:
| > incredible invasion of your privacy!
|
| Obviously. On the other hand, your e ployer sharing your
| personal data against your knowledge or your will isn't an
| incredible invasion of your privacy. Everything is fine
| citizen, move along and quit asking questions or thinking.
| elzbardico wrote:
| "They care a lot!"
| 8cvor6j844qw_d6 wrote:
| > We will be following up with a secure email to obtain the
| requested documents.
|
| "secure email". I expect these data will be turn up somewhere
| in a few years, maybe from a data breach or some other
| shenigans.
| Oras wrote:
| They didn't ask for any of that when harvesting personal
| financial data, how lovely
| Lihh27 wrote:
| lol, collection is frictionless but opting out is full KYC.
| tells you exactly what the system is optimized for.
|
| mailing passport scans to the guys who left Struts unpatched
| for 147M SSNs. what could go wrong.
| bjt12345 wrote:
| The thing about this is that there still exist clauses in
| employment contracts requiring pay secrecy by employees.
|
| So, theoretically some employees have a requirement upon them
| to fill this in.
| YokoZar wrote:
| Those requirements are all facially illegal and unenforceable
| though. In the US you have federally protected labor rights
| that you cannot contract out of. The right to discuss pay and
| working conditions with other workers and the public is one
| of them.
| b112 wrote:
| Yes, imagine being in breach of contract if you apply for a
| mortgage, and they ask "What do you do" and "How much do
| you make a year" and "Can we see a pay stub (or income tax
| info)".
|
| Such clauses are inane beyond the legality of it.
| lazide wrote:
| Guess what agency has been gutted and attacked recently?
| EEOC recently....
| joquarky wrote:
| Yeah, and have you seen what lawyers want for a retainer
| these days?
|
| You have to be rich to defend your rights now.
| avaer wrote:
| I love that it's a freeze not a purge. And that it's opt-out to
| have surreptitiously collected data being used against your
| livelihood.
|
| The data breach should have been reason enough to ban Equifax
| and force them to destroy their data. But that can only be done
| when the government works for the people, instead of money.
| delusional wrote:
| As a European, it is wild to see a private company warning that
| disallowing them the ability to process your personal data
| might hinder your ability to access social services.
| Glawen wrote:
| Have a look at german Schufa company. I was there pre RGPD,
| so maybe things have changed.
| izacus wrote:
| There's a small law called GDPR which makes this kind of
| pulls very illegal. Even for Schufa which doesn't forward
| your direct data.
| kpcyrd wrote:
| This is "only" used for loans and renting, the German
| government is never going to query the score this company
| has assigned you. Social services are never impacted.
|
| Equifax on the other hand claims:
|
| > Social Services - When government agencies can't verify
| your information, you may have to wait longer to start
| receiving benefits.
| wat10000 wrote:
| The German government probably actually knows who all of
| its citizens are.
| dranudin wrote:
| I very much hate Schufa for the way they calculate your
| score (which until very recently was not even disclosed).
| But hey, at least they don't sell my income data to random
| private companies. In fact they do not have my income. Just
| credit related stuff. I demand an overview from them every
| 3 months that they have to physically mail to me, just to
| annoy them..
| exabrial wrote:
| > Job Applications > Employers may delay making a job offer if
| they cannot verify your data on The Work Number.
|
| If by doing this, can employers legally discriminate against
| you?
| hailvectron wrote:
| The "best" part of the "The Work Number" is your employer can
| opt you in without any notification. The last time I worked for
| someone else's company, I specifically asked before I started
| if they shared my salary info with any credit agencies. The HR
| rep: "No we do not!" Guess what? They, or likely their payroll
| provider (ADP?) did.
|
| I am now a partner in a consultancy. Despite my prior comments,
| we have still not yet gotten off Gusto. Pasted from a July 2024
| e-mail Gusto sent me: We are making updates to
| our Payroll Terms of Service to address relevant laws and
| regulations and include information about new products and
| features, including our new employment and income verification
| feature. The updated terms will go into effect for current
| customers on July 31, 2024. You can review the full
| updated terms here. The new employment and income
| verification feature When your employees apply for
| loans, credit cards, or public aid they may be required to
| provide proof of employment and income and, as the employer,
| you often need to manually provide verifications during the
| approval process. With this update, you can save time and help
| your employees get faster access by automating employment and
| income verifications through our new partnership with The Work
| Number(r). No action is needed from you. This
| benefit is included in your current Gusto payroll subscription
| and there are no additional fees. As the employer, you can
| choose to turn off this new feature in the Settings tab at any
| time. The feature will be available on July 31, 2024. Learn
| more > Thank you for choosing Gusto!
|
| So my team, none of whom were ever explicitly asked for their
| consent to share their salary info, were about to have Gusto
| helpfully share it for them. Thanks Gusto!
|
| I (angrily) opted my company out, but I'm probably the only
| partner in the company who would have gone out of their way to
| do that.
| roenxi wrote:
| I'm not seeing how this matters, they were already doing that -
| the market is a big auction to work out the overlap between
| lowest salary employees will work for and the highest salary
| employers will offer. In that process employees also use data to
| figure out the highest salary that will be offered. The thing
| forcing employers to pay the salary they do is that if they offer
| less someone else will gazump them for the employee's time. It
| has nothing to do with the circumstances of the employees
| lifestyle. The lifestyle adjusts to the salary.
| nothercastle wrote:
| This allows all sorts of normally illegal discrimination via ai
| pass through. Never hire pregnant women, sick people or
| employees over 30 again. Target for race and religion whatever
| you want. Basically everything that's scary about chinas social
| credit score except private run with zero accountability.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| > the overlap between lowest salary employees will work for and
| the highest salary employers will offer
|
| There is still an element of unknown because both parties do
| not know each others numbers, which allows employees to still
| negotiate. You are now talking about information asymmetry
| where the party with the information will now have all the
| bargaining power.
|
| When I went from working a $150K job to getting offers from
| Meta at $300K, the initial number they offered was $250K, and
| we worked upwards. I absolutely would've taken the job even if
| they offered $200K and not negotiated. But they did, based on
| information asymmetry. Now imagine a world where meta knows
| exactly how much I make and all the other information about me.
| I'd probably get a minor bump over my previous salary.
|
| Edit: I ended up taking a different offer. I don't work for and
| have never worked for Meta.
| roenxi wrote:
| You might want to rethink your example if the counterparty
| offers you 50% more than you wanted then you reject the deal;
| it makes adding the framing a bit pointless because it is
| clear you weren't ever going to accept the job for $200k.
|
| And you're underestimating how much of an impact the broader
| market is having on Meta's thinking in this scenario. If your
| silver tongue or secret number was a factor here then
| everyone would end up being overpaid because they wouldn't
| reveal that they were happy to work for a reasonable amount.
| It doesn't matter how much or little Meta knows, they're only
| going to offer $300k if they have a reasonable belief that
| you can find a job for $300k somewhere else; informed by a
| pretty detailed analysis of the employment market. And in
| fact that appears to be _exactly what happened_ in your
| story. Nothing about that dynamic has anything to do with
| your salary history or spending habits and them getting
| better information on those things doesn 't change your
| negotiating position. Since a key factor is the future, even
| if they know you'd say yes to $200k, they'd still be best
| served offering you more money. I've had that happen to me 2
| or 3 times because I'm a sloppy negotiator and don't try very
| hard to optimise salary.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| > You might want to rethink your example if the
| counterparty offers you 50% more than you wanted then you
| reject the deal
|
| I rejected the deal because I got even more elsewhere. My
| framing still stands. In a case when only one employer has
| the information, sure they're better served by offering me
| more money. But in an environment where all of them have
| the information, this no longer is a problem. At a system
| level, this is a problem for employees.
| roenxi wrote:
| But if Meta wanted to hire you and had perfect
| information, it sounds like they'd discover they needed
| to offer you salaries in the $350-400k range? That sounds
| like it might be good for you.
|
| The story you seem to have told is they just wasted time
| low-balling you because they didn't have enough
| information to offer a competitive salary. You weren't
| ever going to settle for $250k, they didn't have enough
| leverage and they lacked the information to identify
| that. I'm not sure how you're seeing this story as one
| where more information to Meta leads to them offering you
| a lower salary. It seems like you'd have rejected them
| regardless unless they went higher.
|
| All the employers knowing that you'd have "taken the job
| even if they offered $200K" seems to be completely
| useless to them. They're locked in an auction and the
| market price for your time is nowhere near $200k.
| laserlight wrote:
| > they'd discover they needed to offer you salaries in
| the $350-400k range?
|
| No, such a discovery wouldn't be possible, because nobody
| would pay that amount to someone who was willing to
| accept $200K.
|
| > They're locked in an auction and the market price for
| your time is nowhere near $200k.
|
| There is no magical market price that exists outside the
| market dynamics. When bidders know that one's current
| salary is $150K, their willingness to offer higher
| salaries will diminish accordingly.
| roncesvalles wrote:
| >Now imagine a world where meta knows exactly how much I make
| and all the other information about me. I'd probably get a
| minor bump over my previous salary.
|
| Not necessarily. People don't change companies for just any
| value greater than current TC. There is a big cost to
| switching companies -- it's going to shake up your lifestyle,
| you might lose some relationships, reset your company-
| internal network and reputation, reset technical and
| organization context etc. Possibly even moving your home
| (even if a new job is in the same city, people often move to
| be closer to it anyway).
|
| As a matter of policy I wouldn't switch companies for less
| than a 30% monetary premium over my current TC (I'm a SWE),
| and other soft criteria like type of work and company
| culture. In my early career I've gotten 50-100% premiums each
| time I made a hop.
| p1esk wrote:
| My policy is the opposite - I switch companies every two
| years. Especially if I get too comfortable. Usually because
| I'm bored or because the company grows too much (>100
| people is too much for me).
| mday-edamame wrote:
| Are you worried that you never get to see the results of
| architectural decisions you make? Two years is not much
| time to make an impact and see it through if you're
| senior+
| eloisius wrote:
| If that's true and this has a null effect, why would a business
| pay for it? There must be some utility for them. Like others
| already pointed out: information asymmetry undermines worker's
| ability to negotiate, resulting in lower wages for everyone.
| amelius wrote:
| It's still a case of asymmetric information.
| matwood wrote:
| > I'm not seeing how this matters
|
| Same. This is how any market works. I think one of the problems
| (US only maybe?) is that talking about salary is generally
| taboo. The first thing you should do with all your friends is
| be open about how much you make, and then go online and look
| for more data. That way you start with some good data points.
| Next is talk about negotiating. I was taught growing up that
| everything is negotiable, but later in life I learned that not
| everyone knows that.
| nout wrote:
| And our AIs can give us insight into what is the highest salary
| that the given company can offer.
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| "Our AIs"? The AI models belong to giant corporations (Google,
| Microsoft) or are receiving millions of dollars serving giant
| corporations. How are they yours?
|
| A better solution is passing laws on wage transparency. For
| most jobs, the company has a range in mind. Make them post that
| range in the job offer itself. Short of robust labor unions
| bargaining for better wages, transparency in the job posting is
| the next best thing.
| canpan wrote:
| I wonder if the winning game becomes your own boss and tiny
| companies.
|
| I want to do the jump, but lack of courage, good ideas, sales
| skills and a very good salary still holding me back (open for
| suggestions). But if the very good salary would go away, the
| scales tip instantly.
| peyton wrote:
| Wait til you find out what customers do to figure out the
| lowest. There's a little more accountability.
| jimbokun wrote:
| What you describe is the reason the web site you posted it on
| exists.
| tombert wrote:
| I've considered it myself; I don't want to make a business
| doing contract work again, because I did not enjoy that.
|
| If I were to start my own business it would have to be a
| product. I have plenty of interesting projects that I work on
| in my free time, but I'm not sure any of them are monetizable,
| or at least not monetizable enough for a venture capitalist to
| throw money at me (especially since most of them do not involve
| AI). I could probably think of something that could be
| monetizable if I really tried but if I don't actually enjoy the
| work I'm doing on the side for fun then I'm probably not going
| to do a particularly good job on it.
|
| Though even if I did have some brilliant project that I could
| sell, I have no idea how to go about finding VC investors. And
| even if I knew how to find these investors, I think I would
| ultimately be too afraid to actually commit to it.
|
| Increasingly it's seeming that I will probably not be worth
| billions of dollars in my lifetime, for no other reasons than
| I'm too much of a coward and I'm too discriminating with what I
| actually work on. Sometimes it depresses me to think about it,
| but hard to feel too sad for myself when I still have a high
| salary job that involves me staring at a computer screen all
| day.
| mykowebhn wrote:
| Forgive me for saying this, but I think you may be drinking
| too much of the kool-aid.
|
| If some of your projects are monetizable, couldn't you move
| forward without VC help?
|
| Perhaps related, why do you need to be worth billions of
| dollars? I feel your visions for what you want your future
| self to be are highly unrealistic and you're probably setting
| yourself up for a lot of disappointment and unhappiness.
|
| Sorry for the bluntness, but I think one could be happy on a
| lot less.
| tombert wrote:
| I was being a bit joking and hyperbolic about the billion
| dollars, though obviously that wasn't communicated clearly.
| I don't really need a billion dollars.
|
| I don't think anything I have right now is very
| monetizable; most of the fun stuff I work on now ends up
| being formal methods stuff, which is cool but hard to make
| any money with.
|
| I guess what I was saying is that I think I am ultimately
| think I am too cowardly to just go for it and make my own
| company. I don't think I am capable of purposely avoiding
| income for N months for a project to pick up.
| mykowebhn wrote:
| Ah, okay. I didn't realize that. My bad!
| tombert wrote:
| Given that two separate people didn't understand the
| joke, clearly bad communication on my end. I do not
| accept _your_ "my bad!", and instead insist on it being
| _my_ bad.
| saghm wrote:
| > Increasingly it's seeming that I will probably not be worth
| billions of dollars in my lifetime, for no other reasons than
| I'm too much of a coward and I'm too discriminating with what
| I actually work on
|
| I can't tell if you're wildly underestimating how many
| circumstances are outside of your control or just have an
| extremely high opinion of how much of an outlier you are (or
| maybe this isn't meant seriously and just went over my head),
| but I think that there are vanishingly few people (if any) in
| the world whose only impediments to a high likelihood of
| becoming a billionaire are self-imposed. I don't think that
| even extremely smart and charismatic people are particularly
| likely to do that. For every one that reaches that level of
| wealth, there are far more who try and fail, and it's not
| always because they weren't willing to work on shady things
| or weren't smart enough; some factors are just beyond the
| ability of an individual human to overcome, and you might
| just be lucky or unlucky.
| tombert wrote:
| Clearly poor communication on my end; I was joking about
| the billion dollars. My bad.
|
| I was just saying that I am too much of a coward to
| actually even attempt to make my own business.
| saghm wrote:
| > Clearly poor communication on my end; I was joking
| about the billion dollars. My bad.
|
| No worries, I'm pretty bad at being able to recognize
| humor over text even when it's done well, so I
| legitimately can't tell the difference between whether
| it's on my end or yours! And if it is on your end, it's
| certainly still a more palatable character trait than the
| amount of ego needed to say it seriously.
| tombert wrote:
| It is genuinely hard for me to say anything completely
| seriously and without an abundance of sarcasm. My
| therapist says it might be an avoidance mechanism that I
| devised as a kid in order to avoid confronting serious
| topics.
|
| There probably is some truth to that, and it can
| understandably come off as me not listening or being
| mindful to things people say to me because they think I'm
| blowing it off, even when it's more of just how I deal
| with things. My wife, being pretty awesome in many ways,
| realized this pretty early on and thus more or less
| always understood that when I make a smartass comment
| even for serious topics, I'm not really trying to make
| light of it as much as its just how I cope with things.
|
| Anyway, yeah, I'm sarcastic a lot of the time and I
| realize that that doesn't always come through with text.
| saghm wrote:
| I can definitely relate to that to a certain extent. My
| (mistaken) inference that you were serious probably was
| because so much of the comment before that did seem
| genuinely thoughtful to me, so I assumed that maybe all
| of it was intended to be. If anything, it sounds like
| maybe holding off on the sarcasm for so long forced you
| to have to make a quip near the end (or I just missed
| more of the sarcasm earlier).
| tombert wrote:
| You pretty much got it.
|
| It's more obvious in verbal communication because of
| course it would be easy to tell by the tone of my voice
| that I'm being sarcastic.
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| That was always the "winning game". Only problem is that's a
| lot of work. The more things change, the more they stay the
| same; if you want more money, work harder. People who don't
| want to work harder complain that other people make more money
| because they either don't understand or are in denial about the
| amount of work the people they envy put in.
|
| Yes there are exceptions. No pointing out exceptions won't help
| you, though it might make you temporarily feel better about
| yourself.
| mememememememo wrote:
| Define work harder. I think it is worth defining as it is
| ambiguous and could mean one or more of:
|
| 1. Longer hours at work
|
| 2. Same hours working but adding time learning
|
| 3. Ruthless optimization of time at work.
|
| 4. Working smarter (which probably means learning new
| skills).
|
| 5. Doing stuff that makes you uncomfortable. E.g. honest
| feedback, applying 2 levels above current, hand up to lead
| messy project etc.
| davidkuennen wrote:
| Write down 10 of your TODOs that generate income. As per
| natural law, it's likely that 1-2 of those TODOs will have
| 80% of the impact while the other 8-9 will have almost no
| impact. Now here comes the interesting part. You propably
| already know the 8-9 tasks that have almost no impact, but
| as per another law, those are also the easiest tasks
| (checking mails and such). On that list the TODO that feels
| like the biggest hassle and you least want to do will
| likely have the biggest impact. Sit down and just do it.
| Now, without delay. That already makes you more productive
| than 98% of your colleagues.
| afavour wrote:
| In software engineering it isn't necessarily the winning
| game. FAANG salary vs self employed isn't that a case of
| "work hard and it'll come".
| ralph84 wrote:
| Work harder on the right things. Digging holes in your
| backyard with a shovel is hard work but nobody is going to
| pay you for it.
| doix wrote:
| I bet if you could make it interesting,
| YouTube/TikTok/Instagram/Whatever could make it possible to
| get paid to dig holes in your backyard.
|
| You could argue that the value is in the entertaining
| filming/acting/story telling etc, but if the videos are
| about digging holes then I think it's valid to say someone
| is paying you to dig holes.
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| You can be the hardest working burger flipper at McDonald's,
| but you are not going to be as financially secure as someone
| coasting on a FAANG salary.
| kaashif wrote:
| A burger flipper cannot flip 20x the burgers. There isn't
| really any way to produce more output flipping burgers.
| Even if you could, if there isn't a queue of people waiting
| to collect their orders, there isn't any point in producing
| more blindly.
|
| The person responsible for designing the process that
| thousands of franchises use probably does make a lot of
| money.
| saghm wrote:
| The elephant in the room is health insurance. We have a
| system where even if you have a fairly good income, buying
| insurance as an individual (or as a small company that isn't
| buying in a volume high enough for insurance companies to
| want to give you a discount) means that you'll in all
| likelihood be paying a lot more for a lot less coverage. The
| ACA attempted to solve this by having insurance companies
| offer plans on "public exchanges" by state and then
| subsidizing the costs, but because most people making good
| money get insurance through a job with benefits rather than
| buying it directly, in practice there aren't really any
| options on the public exchanges calibrated for people with
| high incomes. (Plus, if you live in a red state, they've
| likely refused to take the subsidies, which means either the
| prices are higher or the plans are even more meager based on
| what the insurance companies expect people without benefits
| through employment to be able to afford, or both).
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| That's no longer true. You can have ICRA etc plans, for the
| tax benefits.
|
| The truth of the matter is that employers pay a humongous
| share of the health insurance bill, and if you shop
| directly, you will pay that 100% on your own.
|
| You do have to put in a little more effort, but as an
| employer you can build a hybrid plan and contract with
| certain networks, and lower your bill tremendously.
| hansvm wrote:
| They're still maybe right. In CA, it's pretty common for
| the best plan you can buy as an individual to be half as
| good as whatever your employer offers and to cost twice
| as much as the combined employee+employer contribution.
|
| How does ICHRA fix that? What's this "contracting with
| certain networks" you're referring to?
| valleyer wrote:
| > Plus, if you live in a red state, they've likely refused
| to take the subsidies
|
| No. Individual states can refuse _Medicaid expansion_ , but
| that does not have any bearing on the health insurance
| marketplace / premium tax credit ("subsidies"), which
| states cannot opt out of.
| vkou wrote:
| > People who don't want to work harder complain that other
| people make more money because they either don't understand
| or are in denial about the amount of work the people they
| envy put in.
|
| I assure you, I have never in my life worked 20 times harder
| than someone making minimum wage.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| No executive has ever worked as hard as the girl pushing
| carts at your local supermarket or the "Illegal" hand
| picking the fruit you eat for 12 hours a day for less than
| minimum wage or the teen mechanic dealing with a "2 hour"
| warranty job on a vehicle rusted to shit.
|
| There is no such thing as knowledge work that takes that
| much out of you. Sure, thinking hard and making choices all
| day will exhaust you, but you won't stop moving at age 55
| because your body was literally used up for pennies to make
| someone else wealthy.
|
| If you fly business class, you are the elite making your
| wealth by skimming from people doing the real Labor. Your
| wealth is enabled by a paper and some writing. You
| contribute nothing.
| kaashif wrote:
| I don't pay my employees based on inputs like how hard they
| work, I pay based on outputs.
|
| Any other system of incentives would be insane.
|
| Things are different if you're e.g. a lawyer and have
| billable hours.
| tripledry wrote:
| I get this, but also genuinely interested to know how to
| measure outputs. For me it's almost impossible to get it
| objectively right.
|
| Maybe this doesn't apply to your case, but how would you
| measure outputs of say product development, or any data
| related project. Lot's of things don't have a good measure
| of output before the thing is done. Maybe your product /
| analysis improves profitability by 10x or maybe it was a
| flop and lost money.
|
| Tangential, but I'm also seeing the quality of measures
| going down, with AI it seems that the number of
| [emails|code|analysis] produced is again a good measure.
| matwood wrote:
| > I get this, but also genuinely interested to know how
| to measure outputs.
|
| Measuring outputs or inputs (hard work) is always hard.
| Did someone get the thing that was asked done both
| quickly and correctly? Do they do this consistently?
|
| I also find inputs harder to measure because someone
| could be in the office 12 hours/day, but on Facebook the
| whole time. They could also just spin their wheels doing
| 'fake' work.
| kackerlacker wrote:
| I spend some time going through what programmers wrote
| over the past years and many of them were rewarded for
| getting things done quickly with no complaints.. The more
| diligent ones probably didn't last since they got things
| done correctly which takes a lot more time and thought.
| matwood wrote:
| It's why I said quickly _and_ correctly. I think it 's a
| cop out to say someone was slow because they were
| building it correctly. Famously, the old space shuttle
| software was developed very slowly because it had to be
| 100% correct at all times. Most software does not need
| that level of correctness. Part of a SE's job is to
| understand that.
| kackerlacker wrote:
| I pay a lot of attention when someone claims to have
| solved a problem I suspect to be NP-hard. There are a lot
| of possible explanations, for example they may have an
| incorrect measurement function or they may have chosen a
| simpler related problem that isn't really NP-hard, or
| both.
| joquarky wrote:
| Fast, quality, cheap.
|
| Pick two.
| matwood wrote:
| > I don't pay my employees based on inputs like how hard
| they work, I pay based on outputs.
|
| It's crazy how many times I have to explain this to people,
| and it's usually when they ask me for a raise.
| Unbeliever69 wrote:
| Probably not the answer you want to here but I'll share my
| perspective. Three years ago my wife and I sat down and
| optimized our finances so I could soft-retire and focus on a
| few of my life goals while simultaneously working on ways to
| generate income without the stress of being in the employ of
| others. It was tough work which mainly involved paying down a
| lot of debt so we can live more lean. We did a lot of
| optimization and of course some compromise and lifestyle
| changes. Fortunately, my wife earns enough for us to still live
| comfortably on a single income.
|
| Now I am her part-time personal assistant which has taken a big
| load off her plate and reduced her stress significantly. A lot
| of this work is clerical: writing emails, grants,
| curriculum/lessons (she's a teacher), ordering supplies,
| working with spreadsheets, doing misc. graphic design and other
| office work. I also take care of the household, finances
| (mostly) and pets. In my spare time I pursue my lifelong
| passions (writing, game design, and programming), but with each
| of these my focus has been channeling those passions into
| generating income. This is not a requirement of my soft-
| retirement, but rather a choice I made to create balance
| between us.
|
| Overall, we are much happier and fulfilled and have managed to
| carve out a life where we work meaner and leaner without huge
| sacrifices. In reality, it feels like we are financially better
| off than we were before.
| shrubby wrote:
| Wonder what you'd do with your passion in a just world where
| everything of creativity (okay almost) would not need to be
| turned into a income.
|
| I feel this fucking form of slavery as well hard.
|
| How sorry can life be?
| Gareth321 wrote:
| We live in a world where someone has to clean the sewers,
| unblock toilets, maintain electricity lines in snow storms,
| weld deep underwater, clean, wipe the butts of old people,
| and 10,000 other thankless, tiring, and dangerous jobs
| which no one in their right mind would ever do because they
| found it fun and interesting. Until we have very highly
| capable robots to do these jobs, we need some way to
| incentivise doing work which few others want to do, or are
| capable of doing. Right now we use money as the incentive.
| On top of that, there are things people do which bring a
| lot of value to others. They invent new things, for
| example, and sell them. Others buy them. We also want to
| incentivise that, even though it's not easy, and not
| everyone is capable of doing that.
|
| I do think AI and robotics will usher in a much more
| abundant world in the future. It's unclear how we navigate
| that - economically, politically, socially.
| defrost wrote:
| Alternatively, you live in a society that has conditioned
| you to devalue manual labour and erronously assume that
| no one exists who actually enjoys physical interaction
| with the world.
|
| As you're likely to be in the US, you could always watch
| the Mike Rowe _Dirty Jobs_ back catalog.
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_(2006_film)
| srdjanr wrote:
| That's true for some jobs, but I'd be very surprised if
| anyone enjoys cleaning shit, for example
| defrost wrote:
| Leaving aside the scene from _Life of Brian_ , I have no
| issue cleaning shit - I've raised children, they poop, I
| have livestock, they shit, kids will happily frisbee cow
| pats, raking out sheep shit from under shearing sheds is
| a job that I've done, as have many .. you end up with a
| couple of tonne stacked high on a double axle trailer
| that's great for the garden.
|
| For what it's worth, I don't mind a bit of higher
| dimensional data reduction when processing raw multi
| channel data, or geophysical world modelling (magnetic
| fields, gravity, radiometrics, etc).
| shrubby wrote:
| I'm heading to the Graeberian world of bullshit jobs
| which ironically tends to head towards the direction of
| meaning.
|
| I'm pro "everyone cleans their own shit" but the meaning
| of a garbage truck driver could immense compared to a
| honest hedge fund manager or a VC Patagonia vest.
|
| Cleaning time of our own shit hopefully won't be a full
| time job. We'll just figure out the ones creating too
| much shit and educate them as a society :D
| iszomer wrote:
| It can be enjoyable in the context of failure analysis:
| troubleshooting, finding root causes, documenting other
| people's fuckups then tracing through the assignment logs
| on who interacted with the server last.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| By someone you mean... yourself?
| mlrtime wrote:
| Jason Pargin has a great viewpoint on this:
| https://www.facebook.com/reel/1179783609733134
|
| Apologies for a fb reel, but its the easiest way to
| share.
| MichaelRo wrote:
| >> We live in a world where someone has to clean the
| sewers, unblock toilets, maintain electricity lines in
| snow storms, weld deep underwater, clean, wipe the butts
| of old people, and 10,000 other thankless, tiring, and
| dangerous jobs which no one in their right mind would
| ever do because they found it fun and interesting.
|
| >> I do think AI and robotics will usher in a much more
| abundant world in the future. It's unclear how we
| navigate that - economically, politically, socially.
|
| Delusional optimism. If AI and robotics take over, the
| only effect will be another wave of layoffs and
| unemployed, not even the willingness to unblock toilets
| or wipe butts will save you from homelessness and
| destitution. We're already on the way to Victorian era
| poverty, if robots take the shit jobs too, we're back to
| Oliver Twist: please sir, can I have some more ...
| tokens?
| sokoloff wrote:
| How many acres are you personally willing to farm to let
| others eat without payment "in a just world"?
|
| How many days per month are you willing to pick up trash,
| sit in a fire station, or teach elementary school?
|
| It's not slavery (if you) that other people won't give you
| their output without payment. In fact, it's closer to being
| slavery in the other direction if they have to work and you
| get the benefits of their output without payment...
| gosub100 wrote:
| The slavery comes with not being paid in proportion to
| the value provided.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| > In fact, it's closer to being slavery in the other
| direction if they have to work and you get the benefits
| of their output without payment...
|
| This sounds a lot like you've been conditioned to think
| there can't be an alternative to the current system. Even
| if I don't know what a better system would be, I can
| absolutely imagine that there are better options than
| what we've got. We should all want that and push for that
| and ask ourselves what it might be until we find it.
|
| I can tell you this much about what I think would be part
| of that better system: we wouldn't leave people to sleep
| on the streets and we wouldn't have for-profit
| healthcare.
|
| Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| Assuming that a farm would be owned by one person has
| already put a very tiny box around your world view
| ilikecakeandpie wrote:
| > I feel this fucking form of slavery as well hard
|
| I think you'd do well to learn more about how slaves were
| treated before making these comparisons. Have you been
| whipped until your flesh opened and had salt, lime juice,
| and peppers rubbed in the wounds because you messed up at
| work, where you are also forced to lived?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Thistlewood#Treatment_
| o...
| chasd00 wrote:
| no, but i once had my catered lunch taken away during a
| recession /s
| kaashif wrote:
| > In reality, it feels like we are financially better off
| than we were before.
|
| Are you financially better off or does it only feel that way?
|
| If you were actually better off, why mention feelings?
| californical wrote:
| They may have less money but also more time for things they
| care about, and less burden and stress in daily life.
|
| So it is going to be a feeling. Is their smaller income
| going much farther now in how it benefits them, if so they
| feel better-off
| mday-edamame wrote:
| On some level the feeling matters more than the reality,
| past a certain survival threshold.
| snayan wrote:
| I think the heart of what they're getting at is that while
| on paper they are bringing in less income, they have gotten
| off the hedonistic treadmill, and as a result, quality of
| life per dollar has increased dramatically. They are less
| stressed about finances than they were prior, even though
| their income is lower.
|
| Sentiment is an important barometer in this case.
| Rover222 wrote:
| But how long until your wife replaces your job with AI?
| bojan wrote:
| Whenever I read something like this I have to ask if kids are
| in the picture? Or maybe they've already moved away.
|
| I'd like to do something like this but everything that has to
| do with kids is both too expensive and too unpredictable for
| lean living to be an achievable goal.
| exitb wrote:
| It's a very common arrangement, both with and without kids,
| once you look past the gender of particular participants.
| lesuorac wrote:
| It's very common for a teacher's salary to pay the
| expenses of two adults and 2+ kids?
|
| I guess it must be nice not living in high col areas.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Whenever you see something like that, remove USA from the
| bias, and you probably better understand how stupid the
| USA is.
| exitb wrote:
| Given paid off debts and frugal lifestyle (as mentioned
| by the OP), why not? No one keeps anyone hostage in the
| high CoL areas.
| runako wrote:
| There can be a lot of factors at play:
|
| - how old are they? If the poster is ~60, likely has
| savings and may even have Social Security income. If they
| worked as (say) a police officer for 20 years, they may
| have pension income. A 47-year-old former military
| officer could reasonably have kids at home and also
| pension income from the military.
|
| - Many people inherit houses (most houses are eventually
| inherited). Most sell them, but it can be a viable choice
| to just move into an inherited house to zero out housing
| expense. OR one could inherit a house that is >> valuable
| than one's own, such that selling the inherited house
| allows one to pay off one's own house.
|
| - Location. The Discourse typically divides between HCOL
| and LCOL, but ignores that in both there are also people
| who spend much less than the average. In NYC the average
| home price is ~$850k, but there are today listings for
| 3BR homes in the low $200s (<$1,500/mo).
|
| And of course these are stackable. One could have a
| military pension and buy a cheaper place and have a
| buffer from an inheritance. (None of this is uncommon.)
| chasd00 wrote:
| they said "teacher" but also mention writing grants. A
| high school teacher isn't writing grants, their wife
| could be bringing in a lot more than the typical teacher.
| elzbardico wrote:
| A tenured position in a reasonably good university can
| give you quite a good standard of living, and depending
| on your area, there are even opportunities for occasional
| consulting work.
|
| Not to mention that the professional prestige itself in
| an academic profession gives your family a lot of status
| that other people usually try to attain by buying
| expensive stuff.
|
| Even in the fanciest neighborhoods, nobody cares if a
| Princeton Professor drives a 20 years old Volvo.
| goodpoint wrote:
| It's not the winning game at all.
| martin-t wrote:
| I wonder if the solution is democracy.
|
| Most countries used to be hereditary dictatorships ("kingdoms")
| just a few hundred years ago, then people picked up rifles (and
| guillotines) and changed that. Now, since we already have some
| semblance of democracy at the top layer of power, maybe we
| could revolutionize the lower layers without the risks inherent
| to picking up rifles.
|
| I don't see why we should be controlled by sociopaths[0] 8
| hours a day, quite often against our interests.
|
| ---
|
| The other part of the solution is automatically and
| continuously redistributing ownership of the company according
| to hours worked and skill level. This of course has to be
| required by law, otherwise those sociopaths at the top have so
| much leverage that if you ask for anything other than money
| during negotiation, you'll get laughed out of the room.
|
| [0]: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-
| principle-...
| Aurornis wrote:
| > I wonder if the winning game becomes your own boss and tiny
| companies.
|
| Building a successful set of tiny companies is very hard.
| Unless you get lucky with the exact right idea, execution, and
| market timing it's really hard to build a single business that
| pays as well as our tech jobs do. Building multiple companies
| is even harder.
|
| I think everyone sees the survivorship bias examples like the
| levels.io guy or a few of the app developers who got rich and
| thinks it must be easy because their businesses were simple.
| The indie hacker communities are filled with people trying to
| follow in their footsteps and not getting anywhere despite
| years of hard work. The levels.io success story is not
| something that is easily replicated because his signups depend
| so heavily on his huge Twitter presence, where he pushes his
| sites under the guise of friendly information sharing. People
| without Twitter audiences try all the time to replicate his
| success and then wonder why they're not getting signups like he
| does.
| gsibble wrote:
| It is. I am a fractional CTO running my own consulting business
| and I make 3-5x as much as I ever did working for one company.
| And all my clients are very happy.
| WalterBright wrote:
| When I apply for a job, I use data to figure out the highest
| salary the company will accept.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The internet has information on what salaries a company pays.
| One would be foolish to not look it up before negotiating
| compensation.
| JCTheDenthog wrote:
| Definitely not for all companies let alone all positions.
| WalterBright wrote:
| You can get it from similarly positioned positions. For a
| simple example, you can google average starting salaries
| for your major. You can submit your resume to AI and ask it
| what your salary should be. You can go to a recruiter, who
| makes money by getting you as high a salary as possible
| (and they do know their business and their clients).
|
| I've been on both sides of the negotiating table. The idea
| that the employer dictates terms is not reality.
| tombert wrote:
| When I've applied for jobs and done salary negotiations, I try
| pretty hard to find out the max I can get using as many
| variables that I think are relevant (e.g. years of experience,
| previous companies I've worked for, projects I've contributed
| to, etc). No one is writing an article trying to expose me for
| this.
|
| I think the concern is how invasive they can be when doing
| this. It's one thing to quickly search your name on Google or
| something, but they can do creepier stuff. They can look at
| many, many more variables that I can, and it's a little creepy.
| It seems a little wrong to use peoples' credit scores in order
| to squeeze down a lower salary. I don't think there's anything
| even remotely comparable that a prospective employee can do.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > remotely comparable
|
| If it's publicly traded, the company's financial situation is
| laid bare.
|
| Nobody is obliged to accept a lowball offer, either.
| moregrist wrote:
| A public company's overall situation is laid bare. Unless
| you're pretty close to the C suite, it has little to no
| relevance on your salary negotiation.
|
| As we've seen time and again this year, highly profitable
| companies will often lay off workers. So the overall health
| of a company has little to do with how much it necessarily
| values employees.
|
| And the tech industry has a record of both using machine
| learning to skirt laws and a history of illegally colluding
| to suppress wages. This feels like a greatest hits album
| for both.
|
| That is my concern: that all of this data combines with
| some black-box invasive "AI" model and then, magically, all
| my offers end up being lowball. Not whether I can decline
| to accept a specific lowball offer.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > illegally colluding to suppress wages
|
| This was exposed because the colluders were cheating on
| their agreements with each other. That's the perennial
| problem with colluding - there is no enforcement of it.
| That's why cartels are unstable.
|
| > lowball
|
| When you enter a negotiation, you are _always_ going to
| get a lowball offer. That 's why it's a negotiation.
| There are many resources on how to negotiate. It's worth
| your while (literally) to study them.
|
| > So the overall health of a company has little to do
| with how much it necessarily values employees.
|
| Employees are valued according to the _value they
| contribute to the company_. Not the profits or losses to
| the company.
|
| Companies are not a jobs program, nor a social welfare
| organization, nor one's parents. The only thing a company
| owes you is what the terms of the contract you signed
| with them says they owe you.
|
| A company exists to make money for its owners. The
| employees are hired because they produce value in excess
| of what they cost.
| tombert wrote:
| Many (the majority?) companies are not public, so even if I
| agreed with your point about publicly traded companies that
| doesn't really change my point, since we could very easily
| (without it being contrived) limit ourself purely to the
| scope of private companies.
|
| Of course no one is obligated to accept a job they don't
| want (unless the whispers of Trump bringing back the draft
| end up being true...sigh...), but I'm not entirely sure
| what your point is? I don't think anyone is saying that
| these companies are committing crimes, just that it's kind
| of crappy to take advantage of people that you know are
| desperate.
|
| I'm not saying there should be a law against it, I'm not
| saying that the FTC should get involved, I'm not saying
| that you shouldn't apply to companies that are doing this,
| but I _am_ saying that it 's kind of shitty to try and see
| if someone you're hiring is struggling, and then use that
| as a means of lowballing. It's a dick move. The court of
| public opinion, in my mind, has a lower bar than anything
| involving "enforcement".
| dymk wrote:
| You have less data than the company
| throwaway_19sz wrote:
| What are you talking about? You have access to far more info
| on them than they do on you.
| dymk wrote:
| Go read the article
| throwaway_19sz wrote:
| I have read it. I don't think you get my point. I said
| 'access to'. If you think about it, there is plenty of
| data freely available about the company in most job
| applications (often including actual salaries they pay
| their staff - literally the most pertinent data). Yes,
| employers will use whatever tools they can to guess at
| what you might accept. It's a negotiation.
|
| It is perfectly possible for both sides to approach a
| salary conversation as the negotiation that it clearly
| is. In reality, many job candidates barely think about
| negotiating the salary, but I doubt that's due to not
| having enough data points. I think it's probably more to
| do with not wanting to be perceived as 'greedy' or some
| other moral badness, and finding it more comfortable to
| let the recruiter/employer play them like a fiddle. Moral
| pride to spite their face. Sure, we can feel good in the
| moment by angrily pointing out that companies take
| various measures to maximise income and minimise
| expenditure, as if it's surprising or 'wrong'. But it
| might also be helpful to remember that we are in exactly
| the same situation. Then perhaps we can start negotiating
| better deals for ourselves, thus improving life for
| ourselves and our dependents.
| scotty79 wrote:
| People tend to think that income taxes lower your salary. While
| in practice employers know exactly for how little money (in hand)
| you are willing to work and in absence of income taxes would just
| pay this much less so that your money in hand is the same.
|
| As an employee you should fight for income taxes to be as high as
| possible since they are neutral for you and might fund useful
| things for all. When left in the pocket of your employer they
| just become their takeaway. Employers won't spend it on improving
| the company if they don't have to. And the only things that force
| them to spend money in a predictable manner is regulation and
| markey opportunity to earn more. When they have those needs they
| mostly do it with credit anyways.
|
| Conversely as an employer you should advocate for lowest income
| taxes possible for your workers.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| You're suggesting that 100% of the income tax burden is shifted
| from employees to employers.
|
| The incidence of taxation (which party bears the burden of the
| tax, irrespective of who 'pays' it) is widely studied. As it
| relates to payroll taxes (paid by the employer) and income
| taxes (paid by the employee) most research finds that
| _employees_ bear most (but not all) of the burden. This is the
| opposite of your claim.
| scotty79 wrote:
| It's not shifted. It's just there. It was never on the
| employees. Employees don't have their own money to tax.
| Employees money is employers money. That's its source.
|
| Employees get taxed when they spend money by being consumers.
| Sales taxes and VAT are their tax burden. But income taxes of
| the employees are the burden of the employer. It's employer
| who has to fork that money because otherwise he wouldn't be
| able to pay enough so that the employee agrees to work.
| verteu wrote:
| The poster is referring to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence
| scotty79 wrote:
| It's really not as straightforward as they make it to be:
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00
| 472...
|
| Higher taxes cause gross pay to raise.
|
| There's evidence that increasing cost of operation of
| corporations through taxation is not fully born by
| workers. It falls in large part on the owners and
| landlords (who were omited in earlier works on income tax
| incidence).
|
| https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=8997
| 844...
| OutOfHere wrote:
| It is not up to employer to tell me what to accept. If they
| lowball me, odds are high that I will just not accept it, or if I
| do, I will be sure to leave them as soon as I get a more
| reasonable offer, preferably in the middle of a project with no
| notice beyond what any prior agreement calls for. I will treat
| them the way they treat me.
| mememememememo wrote:
| Needs to be made really illegal so they are scared of multi
| million law suits and whistleblowers.
| alebaffa wrote:
| Here in Japan they ask you your current salary (it's even
| mandatory by most companies), so it's easier here :) ... :(
| coolandsmartrr wrote:
| That's why you have to get competing offers
| weregiraffe wrote:
| And if you lie?
| onion2k wrote:
| It works the same way here in the UK. Some companies ask your
| previous salary, and _sometimes_ check your references, and
| _sometimes_ your previous employer will disclose what your
| salary was. If it turns out you lied nothing bad happens, but
| you 've just given your new employer a reason to dismiss you.
|
| The main problem with the UK system is that it means that if
| you were underpaid before you're likely to continue to be
| underpaid in your next role (if you accept a low salary
| again). For that reason when I'm hiring I've stopped asking
| for someone's previous salary, and just ask them what they
| want instead. If it's in the right ballpark everyone's happy.
| If they lowball themselves I ask why and usually get "That's
| x% more than I'm on now.", which leads to a conversation
| about how they're underpaid and should be asking for more. If
| they ask for too much then I just don't hire them because I
| can't afford them.
|
| There's a new law coming in where companies have to disclose
| salary bands now, which at least means people will understand
| the bottom end. That's going to make the salary negotiation
| part of hiring a lot easier.
| bojan wrote:
| > and sometimes your previous employer will disclose what
| your salary was
|
| How is this even legal?
| ragall wrote:
| I suspect it's not, but it's also hard to prove something
| has occurred in private communication between third
| parties.
| AlBugdy wrote:
| > For that reason when I'm hiring I've stopped asking for
| someone's previous salary, and just ask them what they want
| instead.
|
| Why don't you post what you're paying in the job ad/offer?
| Some people even skip ads without a salary or a salary
| range because of all the uncertainty. As a potential
| employee somewhere, you've obviously already calculated a
| range or a fixed number - so why ask the employee?
| onion2k wrote:
| Everyone just says the top of the range.
| mghackerlady wrote:
| It's japan, they're a high trust society
| xyst wrote:
| just create your own company, report you pay yourself the
| equivalent of $676,942.00 to this credit agency. Then watch your
| numbers go up
| p1esk wrote:
| You might have to pay tax on that
| quesera wrote:
| Credit agencies do not report income to the IRS, so there's
| no tax relevance. Credit agencies are not party to your
| obligations to the IRS at all. You can lie to credit agencies
| all day long if you like.
|
| However, if you do so for the purpose of some kind of
| benefit, financial or otherwise, it's clearly fraud.
|
| It's hard to remember that that's still illegal these days --
| but it is, for you and for me, at least.
| stuckkeys wrote:
| Is it Fraud though? Think about it...sounds to me like data
| obfuscation. There are no laws that enforce the truth if
| there is no financial damage. So the previous comment
| stands.
| quesera wrote:
| I think you're wrong, but I'm not a lawyer and I don't
| operate on the fringes of fraudulent behaviour, so I
| might be miscalibrated.
|
| But my premise is that there is benefit derived from the
| lie, either financial or otherwise. I believe this is
| clearly fraud and risks civil penalties if pursued by the
| party who used the information to extend the benefit.
|
| An interesting case is if you lie about previous salary
| to a prospective employer who does not have the ability
| to confirm the data. In that context, with no formal pre-
| employment agreements or contracts, the lie is probably
| just negotiation strategy with no civil liabilities. I
| repeat that I am not a lawyer. :)
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| Here's a freebie:
|
| - $30k for anything that helps my community / humanity
|
| - $100k for anything harmless that I just don't give a damn about
|
| - 3 million per month after tax to work on weapons of war
| Snild wrote:
| What a hassle!
|
| Here in Sweden, your tax filings are public information;
| companies can just ask the government what you made last year. I
| have no idea if they actually do, though, and the data will be
| somewhat obfuscated if you have extra income on the side.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| I earn like EUR100k per year. Not a huge salary, but definitely
| above average. My family lives in Eastern Europe. Once I was
| hanging out with my cousin and his friends, all of these people
| had minimum-wage jobs. Not really my type of social circle, but
| I have no issues being cool for an evening. Then suddenly my
| cousin drinks one too many and starts blabbering about how
| "fucking rich" I am and all eyes turn to me because guess what
| the whole group smelled an opportunity. Never spent time with
| them again.
|
| I assume such situations occur often in Sweden where it's
| really awkward if you want to hang out with a crowd from lower
| social class because they know your earnings.
| vkou wrote:
| > I assume such situations occur often in Sweden where it's
| really awkward if you want to hang out with a crowd from
| lower social class because they know your earnings.
|
| You don't have to be in Sweden to have a pretty good idea
| within a few minutes of talking to someone, of what the
| ballpark for their earnings is.
|
| Your social class is written all over your face, your
| clothes, your manners, your manner of speaking, the company
| you keep, the hobbies you have, where and how you spend your
| time...
| miek wrote:
| I am technically in the upper class based on income and
| place of residence. I drive an 11 year old vehicle, wear
| inexpensive clothes (often plain tees), eat out
| infrequently, etc. I unintentionally spend more in areas
| that tend not to be obvious to non-friends. I'd be upset if
| people could easily lookup my income.
| ragall wrote:
| An 11 years old vehicle could be a Corolla or an S-Klass.
| miek wrote:
| It's the lowest trim level of japanese minivan. Many
| hidden zipties threaded like stitches secure plastic
| panels and underbody guards.
|
| I save more than most and spend more on things like gear
| and vacation. Nobody knows unless I allow it to be known.
| Among my peers (coworkers and friends from places I've
| lived), I easily live in the area w the most poverty. I
| prefer to keep my income level private. If it were known,
| it would likely change the nature of my relationships.
| Worst would be the nonproft where I occasionally help the
| same ~20 people, most in awful financial situations.
| oceansky wrote:
| People driving 11 years old S-Klass aren't usually rich,
| only irresponsible.
| ragall wrote:
| Why irresponsible ?
| vkou wrote:
| Yes, you are very exceptional. A well-paid employee (or
| former employee) who lives somewhere nice, dresses like
| they are in college and drives a beat-up Civic and
| hopefully saves all his money, I can close my eyes, spin
| around, throw a rock, and have 20/80 odds of hitting
| someone who matches that exact description in this town.
|
| But yes, it's possible you are sufficiently outside the
| grain that you don't have any obvious tells about your
| social class. And, of course, a dedicated confidence man
| _could_ fake enough of them to fool enough people enough
| of the time.
|
| But that would be the exception that would prove the
| rule. And even if they were publicly available, you have
| to be deeply pathological to be looking up the tax
| records of your acquaintances, I can't expect that to be
| a regular problem in Sweden.
| miek wrote:
| You failed to understand the intent of my self-
| description. I don't care about whether I'm exceptional,
| unique, or how many people there are matching my
| description where anyone lives. I only care that my
| income isn't publicly known and that _it is not easily
| derived from my appearance or behavior_ , because it
| would change the nature of my relationships. I know of
| people who've had relationship problems with salary
| disclosure via OpenTheBooks etc.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| > Your social class is written all over your face, your
| clothes, your manners, your manner of speaking, the company
| you keep, the hobbies you have, where and how you spend
| your time...
|
| This is not true for lots of software developers who grew
| up poor but got rich. I wear shitty clothes, live in the
| ghetto, my hobbies are video games, cycling, and porn, and
| when speaking I code-switch easily. If anything, it's the
| other way around - when I'm around city folks with their
| mannerisms and discussions about veganism I clearly see I
| don't fit and I come across as a neanderthal despite my
| income being around top 10%.
| sdoering wrote:
| I grew up with a single dad that while having a good
| salary also had the mortgage to pay. So I was middle
| class, but never had the niceties my peers had.
|
| I moved out before finishing school (I did finish living
| on my own) and working 40 - 60 hours next to school -
| while being officially below the poverty line. This went
| on during most of my university days.
|
| When starting a job I had to live frugally, because it
| had a really shitty salary.
|
| Nowadays I am in the top 5 - 2 percent of earners
| (depending on how you calculate/count.
|
| I still wear regular clothes most of the time. I nearly
| never eat out. I spend on things people do not really
| see.
|
| So yeah - I can relate. Especially when being socially
| thrown together with the kind of people you describe.
| 100% second this.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| Once I was invited to some gathering. Right at the
| beginning they asked me if I'm from
| $ENVIRONEMTNAL_ORGANIZATION. I thought they were just
| fucking with me so I replied laughing/ironically "Do I
| look like I'm from $ENVIRONEMNTAL_ORGANIZATION?".
|
| Turns out, they were dead serious. For the rest of the
| evening we had some boring-ass shitty activities and
| insufferable conversations. 0/10 I checked out early and
| never showed up again.
| user_7832 wrote:
| ...I'm a bit afraid to ask, but are folks from Greenpeace
| supposed to be rich or something? (I'm not from the US so
| idk if it's a cultural thing I'm missing.)
| anal_reactor wrote:
| Unless you come from privileged background, you don't
| exactly have the free time to go and prostest against the
| destruction of habitat of toads. And even if you do have
| the time, you probably don't care.
| boelboel wrote:
| Most software related jobs on their own aren't seen as a
| 'high class' professions. It's a job which got extremely
| lucrative recently. It's similar to someone who made lots
| of money from the gold rush. The fact you were poor
| growing up usually means you'll never be seen as high
| class at older age either (part of the reason why some of
| these tech billionaires seem frustrated?)
|
| It's not always too difficult to tell if someone is a
| software engineer from their behaviour and interests
| alone.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| I think you're describing all the ways that your social
| class is written all over everything. You could leverage
| your paycheck to try to change some of this, but your
| social class influences your decision not to bother.
| Snild wrote:
| I've never had a problem like that. People don't bother
| looking it up -- probably because your socioeconomic class is
| apparent anyway from e.g. the area you live in. AFAIK, the
| only ones who have ever looked mine up are banks, when I was
| applying for mortgages.
| carlob wrote:
| Sweden is one of the countries with the lowest salary
| inequality in the world. In Eastern Europe 100k a year puts
| you at what 10x minimum wage? I think that would be
| considered a pretty high salary in France or Spain as well. I
| think your friend reaction is warranted, but I don't think it
| would happen often in Sweden...
| sdoering wrote:
| Even in Germany 100kEUR a year puts you in the top 2%
| (maybe even top1%) for single earners. And in the top 5%
| for a couple.
|
| So OP is - for eastern European standards (depending on
| which country specifically) very well off. Talking as if
| 100kEUR was nothing special is actually quite telling imho.
| mmarq wrote:
| But it's not guaranteed that you'll ever be as rich as a
| pensioner who owns a flat outright.
|
| Asset prices inflated so much that income is not
| completely irrelevant, but it is at best only half of the
| picture.
| alexjplant wrote:
| Class warfare is a chart-topping hit in the US too. I've been
| on the receiving end of this rhetoric a few times in social
| situations but it's always been by college-educated people
| who get their politics from specific corners of the internet.
| They view those below them as ignorant, culturally-regressive
| boors and those above them as malicious hyper-capitalistic
| villains. That they've never dropped a fry basket or mopped a
| floor in their lives is of no consequence - they still find
| it appropriate to call people "tech bros" or, astoundingly
| enough, tell them that they "don't deserve to make as much as
| [they] do" because they view others' finances as an affront.
| It's personal dissatisfaction and consumerist impotence
| manifested as jealousy, nothing more, nothing less.
|
| Interestingly enough I can't recall a single instance of a
| working-class person acting like this in a similar situation.
| A friendly ribbing and wise crack here and there, sure, but
| never as seething as somebody who feels like they should be
| making more than they do because _they went to school for
| this, damnit_!
| chasd00 wrote:
| > They view those below them as ignorant, culturally-
| regressive boors and those above them as malicious hyper-
| capitalistic villains.
|
| to rephrase an old Chris Rock joke, "the worst thing to an
| enlightened college-educated person with a nickle is anyone
| else with a dime".
| brikym wrote:
| But is the income data is also available to individuals? If I
| can find out the income of another professional in a similar
| role that becomes the anchoring point. Otherwise the company
| will just offer {prev_year_income} + peanuts.
| retSava wrote:
| It is. You can basically check out the company linkedin,
| people in similar roles/YoE, then google their name to find
| out their birthday, then just call our IRS. Ask for declared
| income for year X, X-1 etc. This gives you an anchor as
| parent said. It's a way to change the power imbalance when
| negotiating. I know friends that do this when applying for
| jobs. There's a law coming that makes this basically
| worthless, since the salary range for the role must be
| declared openly with the ad. And that btw is one of the first
| questions I ask when talking to hiring manager or HR, to find
| out if it's a good fit.
| rmnclmnt wrote:
| > ... said the company "does not use algorithmic wage-setting
| tools to make compensation decisions for our employees or to set
| new-hire salaries."
|
| When the HR/CRM/ERP/whatever internal software has the plan to
| compute these metrics and they display it as metadata next to the
| people's names, it's hard not to curious << just to check >>.
| Maybe it's not in the company policy but you can never be sure of
| individuals actions (especially big corps as mentioned in the
| article)
| weakened_malloc wrote:
| What I find funny about this is that stories have been floating
| around for *years* about HFT/quant firms specifically hiring
| quants to work out what the lowest they can pay people in the
| firm is, and still keep them.
| impish9208 wrote:
| There was a story recently about how large landlords use salary
| data to raise rents. If they see you got a raise, they'll
| increase your rent accordingly. And pretty soon, retailers will
| do the same. Your personalized price for a gallon of milk at
| Walmart will reflect your annual raise. I love living in the
| future!
| like_any_other wrote:
| "I have nothing to hide"
| tsoukase wrote:
| At the moment, I think the data that we protect ourselves are
| useless and those that are public are precious.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| Presumably this also means if you don't get a raise, they don't
| raise your rent as much, knowing it would make you more likely
| to move. They no longer have to guess about your ability to
| pay.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| I foresee people shopping in masks, with phone off, using cash
| as a protest, and poor people being black market designated
| shoppers.
| futureproofd wrote:
| Large institutional landlords use Equifax data, TWN, and other
| 3rd party financial tracking systems to dynamically price
| renters across the board; new rentals, security deposit,
| renewals, etc. These are pricing strategies insurance companies
| use to their advantage, often partnering with landlords to
| ensure they're getting risk-reduced renters.
| cbHXBY1D wrote:
| How does this interact with RealPage and other algorithmic
| price fixing software?
| dbg31415 wrote:
| Yeah, but think of how much money you'll save when you're able
| to just pay a poorer person to go grocery shopping for you!
| alexpotato wrote:
| Many years ago, back when companies could ask for your previous
| compensation [0], a hiring manager once said to me "don't ever
| lie about your past compensation".
|
| I wasn't sure how they could figure this out at the time until
| someone later pointed out that many corporations do a credit
| history check on you as part of the background check. This gives
| them access to past compensation.
|
| The information asymmetry here is, as with much of hiring, pretty
| bonkers when they had both the current and past comp history
| during negotiations when you have just yours. You might also have
| the comp history of your friends too (if you share) but that's
| still tiny compared to the corporations.
|
| 0 - this was in NYC where it's now no longer allowed.
| fred_is_fred wrote:
| I don't recall ever seeing a salary in my credit report.
| Certainly when applying for credit cards you are asked but
| generally they have you include all sources of income including
| bonus, passive income, and alimony.
|
| There are data sources for this info but I don't think it's
| technically a credit report.
| wombat-man wrote:
| Experian does collect and sell income data about people, in
| fact i think they pay companies directly for this
| information. This is helpful for salary negotiations. It's
| not in a normal credit report though, true.
| bitexploder wrote:
| Loan applications. Credit cards. They all ask for your
| income. I always put 1,000,000. Never been denied a loan.
| PenguinCoder wrote:
| Mortgage loans and car loans in America also ask for your
| W-2 or proof of that said income. Can't prove it, they
| won't let you use your claimed income as basis for loan
| approvals.
| bitexploder wrote:
| I never had to supply a W-2 for a vehicle loan. Just my
| SSN. I almost always get unsecured loans too. They just
| dump money into your bank account and say "please buy a
| car with this" and you keep the title. For a mortgage you
| do have to validate your income. The work around is to
| just buy your house in cash, I guess (sigh). So I guess
| mortgage loans leave you open there, but those happen
| less frequently and may not be good map of income level
| on a shorter period.
|
| Once in a while they want to see a bank statement or two
| showing actually paycheck deposits, but I only ever saw
| that on a mortgage. Once for the car loan they asked to
| see a balance or two via bank statement. So I showed them
| a bank account sitting around the $$ for the vehicle
| loan.
|
| I tend to just avoid loans if at all possible now though.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| > They just dump money into your bank account and say
| "please buy a car with this" and you keep the title.
|
| where is this?
|
| you don't have or keep the title until the bank sees you
| paid off the loan, in every instance i've seen.
| elephanlemon wrote:
| An unsecured loan just a straight cash loan. In my
| experience the interest rates are usually a fair bit
| higher than a vehicle loan, and I would assume the
| maximum amount is generally quite a bit lower.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Ahhh, like if you were to put your new VW on your Visa
| card entirely.
|
| That might work: you'd have bought the car, from the
| point of view of VW and your DMV, so the DMV sends you
| the title, not Visa.
| bitexploder wrote:
| In my experience it really depends. You are still
| contractually and legally obligated to purchase a vehicle
| in many of these setups, they just don't follow up or
| enforce it directly in most cases. Loan rates are nothing
| like unsecured personal loan rates. Probably higher than
| best auto loan rates. With rates being what they are it
| may not make as much sense to use an unsecured loan at
| this point, but when rates are low the cost was
| negligible and the convenience worth it.
| AndroidKitKat wrote:
| In Maryland I received my car's title, but it just shows
| the lien holder's information on it. I've never bought a
| car in any other state so my information is limited.
|
| Is this different from what you mean?
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| i'm pretty sure that in Arizona, and i think in
| California, they DMV sends the title updated to show the
| original holder (like BMW Financial Services, Subaru
| Financial Services, or whatever) has been payed
| completely, and the person is then shown as the title
| holder.
| thayne wrote:
| I've even had to prove my salary when applying for
| apartments. No loan involved. The first time that
| happened I didn't have a w-2 yet, so they called my
| employer to check.
| fred_is_fred wrote:
| Right - there are plenty of data sources here but it's not
| a credit report.
| jrexilius wrote:
| If I remember correctly, ADP and the other big payroll
| processors sell your income data, as do many of the finance
| apps that get access to your bank account data. They also
| have your rent and mortgage payments typically. It's not
| always a line item in your official credit report, but the
| data leaks (and is sold) everywhere. Probably the more
| correct phrasing would be "in your financial target data
| profile as sold by [credit agencies, et al]"?
| slicktux wrote:
| Equifax's The Work Number buys salary data from employers and
| they use it for income verification when applying for loans
| and rentals. You'd be surprised how much data is out there;
| and it was all sold by entities you 'trust'. One example
| being the DMV
| joezydeco wrote:
| If you lease a car these days you will be swamped with
| offers from banks and lease-end "providers" as your end
| date approaches. I got really mad with the dealer until
| they told me it was the DMV that was selling that
| information.
|
| Regarding The Work Number: you have the right to see your
| own report and it's worthwhile to do so. And it's scary. A
| lot of the information is usually incomplete and/or full of
| holes. I can't believe anyone would base a decision on this
| data.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| as an example, i have received usmail junkmail addressed
| to my address, but with the name of my first cousin's
| husband's name, which makes no sense unless some
| incompetent data brokers are just merging their datasets
| in all sorts of random ways and seeing what sticks.
|
| i dream of phone calls costing the entity placing the
| call some significant-at-scale price, perhaps a dime, and
| bulk rate physical junkmail needing full postage.
| endymi0n wrote:
| "don't ever lie about your past compensation" -- because they
| can't figure it out on their own and IF they do (at least in my
| jurisdiction), you've got a nice case on your hands to sue them
| for violating privacy laws.
|
| The correct answer is: ALWAYS lie about your past compensation.
| It's the only way to get forward, one way or the other.
| alexpotato wrote:
| This is one of those strategies that may be "correct" in the
| sense that it works once or twice, but isn't a great long
| term strategy.
|
| e.g. let's say you sue and then win: that's now in the public
| record (which any new hiring company can see).
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Its the perfect case for why labor organizes.
|
| Collectively battling this is good, but individually no one
| wants to because its personally high risk (legal costs,
| deter future employers hiring you) and low reward (some
| settlement that won't change your life).
| bckr wrote:
| Are you part of a union? How can we get the tech industry
| unionized?
| RajT88 wrote:
| A better strategy is to push the conversation in another
| direction:
|
| - My current comp is X, but that's not what I am worth to
| you.
|
| - I've done my research, and someone with my experience is
| worth Y. I expect at least Y.
|
| You set your salary expectations with your opening bid
| instead of letting them make the opening bid. It's also
| contingent on you having done your research =)
| eb0la wrote:
| I cannot disclose muy current compensation due to an NDA:
| salaries are company propietary information.
|
| I am unable to disclose that information.
| dcrazy wrote:
| If you are a non-managerial employee, the NLRA explicitly
| prohibits your employer from restricting you from
| discussing your compensation.
|
| And anyway, if you're not in a state that has banned
| employers from asking for salary information, the
| recruiter always has the option of shit-canning your
| application for being non-responsive.
| nprateem wrote:
| The correct answer is to answer the question you wanted them
| to ask, "I'm looking for $x"
|
| No lie, skirt the irrelevant info
| jakevoytko wrote:
| An old neighbor of mine was a headhunter. He once told me that
| some companies had a trick to get around the law. Upon getting
| hired, you'd sign a document saying that you'd agree to all
| policies in the employee handbook. Pretty standard stuff. One
| of the company policies was that you needed to prove any
| previous salary you stated in the negotiation. If it was too
| far off, they'd just terminate you. The trick is that they
| didn't ask at all during the hiring process; you're already
| hired and onboarded and then HR puts a meeting on your calendar
| to explain the policy to you.
| alexpotato wrote:
| > The trick is that they didn't ask at all during the hiring
| process; you're already hired and onboarded and then HR puts
| a meeting on your calendar to explain the policy to you.
|
| Yeah, "all bets are off" once you are a FTE.
| gcr wrote:
| Isn't that too late to negotiate compensation? I had figured
| most of the value is knowing how to properly lowball
| candidates
| zamadatix wrote:
| It sounds like negotiation would still be done however it
| normally would before things got to this point.
| barbazoo wrote:
| It sounds made up. Who would go through the negotiating
| phase, hire the person go through all paperwork only to
| then gotcha them and fire them if they lied about their
| past salary? I've never seen an org that actually played
| games like that.
| m3047 wrote:
| Dunno, kind of sounds like hiring and then negotiating
| compensation.
| Balgair wrote:
| Christ, that sounds like a colossal waste of time for
| everyone
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I call BS. Why would they hire you at an agreed to price, go
| through the cost & effort and then try and "get you"? Your
| old neighbour was either in bed with his hiring clients or
| not very good at his job.
| jakevoytko wrote:
| He recruited for wall street trading firms; based on the
| finance types I've met over the years in NYC I would 100%
| believe some did this just because they hated losing. He
| was just making the point that you should never lie about
| your salary history, because he can help you if you didn't
| want to give it but he couldn't help you if you BSed
| everyone and got caught.
| refurb wrote:
| That seems like a great way to open your company up to a
| discrimination lawsuit (whether warranted or not). Not to
| mention the costs of hiring a new employee you only fire a
| month later - why bother?
|
| Sounds like HR mythology.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _The information asymmetry here is ... pretty bonkers_
|
| This is why you shouldn't trust anyone who sells you on the
| idea that the ability to negotiate your own deals against large
| corporations is a feature and not a bug.
|
| The information asymmetry, plus the difference in legal fire
| power & wherewithal to withstand a drawn out negotiation, will
| always put you at a disadvantage.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I'm skeptical. Credit checks don't give you an accurate picture
| of your compensation and it's not like they get your
| transactional banking history or tax documents (yet). Even with
| that it would be impossible to get an accurate compensation
| figure within 25%, so while I agree there's an informational
| imbalance if that's how you're negotiating you've already lost.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Eh, I don't have the link at the moment - it was posted some
| years ago on HN. In the US, your employer very likely reports
| your salary to a national agency. And other companies can
| access it.
|
| You can go to the agency yourself, prove your identity, and
| see all your salary history.
| array_key_first wrote:
| The Work Number by Experian gives all past income
| information. I think many (most?) companies participate in
| it, so it's somewhat likely your current income is being
| reported.
| jcomis wrote:
| This is accurate, except theworknumber is an equifax
| product. Experian and transunion have similar products
| however that share past comp data in exchange for a fee
| and/or current data sharing. Basically, "theworknumber"
| lets employers see what you made previously in exchange for
| the employer sharing what they pay all/most employees
| currently.
|
| Large companies often share a lot of details too, such as
| yearly raises, bonuses, weekly rates, etc. Still, it is
| often inaccurate. For example, I have worked freelance
| extensively under my name (DBA) and llc and none of it is
| there.
|
| You can pull your record if you want. If your employer uses
| workday, they almost certainly share every paystub with
| theworknumber.
|
| You can freeze your data:
| https://employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-freeze
|
| HOWEVER, if you do so, many companies won't proceed with an
| offer until you unfreeze.
| m3047 wrote:
| See also sibling comment, the Big Three offer free annual
| credit reports through
| https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action but I
| haven't seen work history included. I believe that they do
| collect & report on this information, but I have been
| unable to get them to share it with me.
| browsingonly wrote:
| The Big Three have many non-credit-report products, and
| no they will not share them with the reports' subjects
| (you and I).
| chrisBob wrote:
| So, lie about RSU and Bonus?
|
| It seems like base salary would be easy to track, but other
| benefits would be much harder.
| patatino wrote:
| Lying about my compensation always worked so far
| everforward wrote:
| The information asymmetry is sort of wild to me. I can't really
| figure out an angle why this isn't bad for the same reasons
| insider trader is bad. I'm even okay with them having the info,
| I just think companies should be required to publish everyone's
| salaries. Redacting names is fine, but I should be able to look
| up the team I would join and see titles and salaries for
| everyone on the team.
| pickleglitch wrote:
| Between this and algorithmic pricing, I envision a future where
| every penny of your finances is know to both employers and
| retailers, and together they ensure that you only ever have as
| much purchasing power as the "free market" decides you should
| have.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Reactive, defensive positions just aren't going to do it. Go
| ahead and find ways to poison their data at this point.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| If your HR software is the same that does payroll and does hiring
| for your company and many others, it's almost garunteed a flag
| goes up when you apply to another job with a different company.
|
| https://www.workday.com/en-us/products/payroll/overview.html
|
| I would not trust applying for any company with workday.
| mrbluecoat wrote:
| Also: "Potential employees of employers use public data to figure
| out the highest salary they'll offer"
| alsetmusic wrote:
| > Also: "Potential employees of employers use public data to
| figure out the highest salary they'll offer"
|
| What sort of both-sides nonsense is this? The power imbalance
| is the reason this is noteworthy. They aren't the same.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I think we are done with the "power imbalance" lens on
| everything.
|
| What I want in comp is a mixture of what I know you can pay
| and what I can get elsewhere.
|
| What you want to pay is a mixture of what you think I'll be
| ok with and what you can get someone "just as good" for.
|
| It takes two to tango.
| gsibble wrote:
| Why don't companies realize the more you pay a highly skilled
| worker, the more you get out of them?
|
| Tech companies seem to get it but so few others do, including
| startups.
|
| I usually have 1/3rd the staff I'd normally need but I hire top
| tier people at 2x what most startups pay. In the end I save
| money.
| ozgrakkurt wrote:
| This is a very complex problem as far as I can understand.
|
| You will be in trouble if that person left their last job because
| they were unhappy about pay or if the value you are giving is
| lower than some other company is willing to pay.
|
| They will leave pretty soon in both cases.
|
| Or even worse, they might be in a hurry to find a job for some
| reason, then they will accept but see the job as temporary.
|
| Would be interesting to know how this actually effects job
| market.
|
| As far as I know there are websites for employees to declare how
| much their employers are paying them. Also would be interesting
| to know how that actually effects job market.
|
| I didn't see this before but would be cool to have a website to
| see how much money people around me are paying for rent too.
| Archonical wrote:
| Seeing what your neighbors are paying for rent is an amazing
| idea. I know there's quite a disparity in buildings. I imagine
| landlords will be squeezed from both sides this way - they
| wouldn't want the website to show how well a given tenant
| negotiated, so they may negotiate harder.
| elzbardico wrote:
| The ones who will be squeezed won't be the landlords, but the
| renters.
|
| It is like salary transparency, that misteriously enough
| never led to low paying folks being better compensated, but
| by flattening out compensation for everyone who is not upper
| management by the lowest common.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| You can see public housing data in some countries. E.g. the
| housing development board in Singapore allows you to see
| rental data down to the physical building you stay in.
| QuantumSeed wrote:
| Both Amex and Chase regularly ask me to confirm my income. I
| wonder why they do that if the data is already available to them
| via Equifax.
| onelesd wrote:
| data can also be treated as signal. for example, if they know
| you are claiming a different income than is verifiable it
| signals something - good, bad, or indifferent - that they will
| use in algorithms.
| NoSalt wrote:
| This is absolutely despicable!
| No1 wrote:
| One of the often-overlooked terms of use that people ignore when
| accessing a payroll processing / human resources website is that
| the company providing those services can "share" your data with
| "trusted partners" which essentially allows them to move your
| income and other personal information to other entities which, in
| turn, sell that information to anyone who is willing to pay.
|
| It's one of the more abusive uses of click-through agreements -
| in order to get paid, you have to login and setup your payroll
| information, and in order to login, you have to click through and
| agree to these terms, and there is no way to opt out during or
| after the process.
| boombapoom wrote:
| if only requiring employers to post the salary for a job could
| fix this
| cat-turner wrote:
| You can tell them your past compensation, and if they dig in and
| you signed an agreement, tell them it included bonuses. Don't
| tell how much of your salary was compensation vs bonus.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| vs stock grants.
| myroon5 wrote:
| And claim large bonuses were handed over as cash? Because
| payroll software like ADP sells employees' compensation data
| kats wrote:
| Bilt sends your rent payments to Equifax. Equifax used to sell
| that data through The Work Number.
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