Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay • Hacker News Board

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#601

Post by hobs » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:17 AM UTC

rev_bird wrote: post #390

lukejduncan wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've followed this advice in the past with mixed results. Some companies do a great job of either respecting this or not asking in the first place. When I interviewed at Uber (a little more than a year back), the recruiter was super persistent. I told them "I understand why you're interested, but it's my personal preference at the advice of personal mentors, not to disclose that information. If we both like each othe…

> "OK, we can do that. But we have a policy of always making the lowest possible offer to candidates who won't share their compensation information. I just want the best for you." This makes absolutely no sense to me. "Oh, we can't use previous compensation to effectively lowball this candidate we like, so we'll ineffectively lowball them instead."

Because that person values you jumping through hoops to train you to accept future hoop jumping you will inevitably do, and test your hoop jumping ability.

If you dont play ball with bureaucracy, you are punished in the only way they have available.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#602

Post by School-Cotton » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:20 AM UTC

markonthewall wrote: post #11

I love the US and California, the tech scene is amazing and I was lucky to met such talented and friendly people in about every place I worked... from very large tech cos to "garage" startups. Which is why it pains me to see that so many engineers get stuck with such ridiculous salaries (relative to the value and wealth they provide and create). Problem is that some salaries are seemingly high compared to what the av…

Not sure why you're calling out California when developers there get paid more than literally anywhere else in the world, often by several times.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#603

Post by sgift » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:20 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #527

nikatwork wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...except if all the competitors ask how much the employee was paid at their last gig, so bid $12. Price fixing is an actual thing, that's why we have labor laws. Also see: non-compete agreements.

And the next competitor bids $12. There are 10s of thousands of businesses in the US. It's hard to believe there'd be any remotely successful collusion in keeping wages down. Non-compete agreements are invalid in many states. Also, would you sign a non-compete agreement in order to get paid 10% of your value to the business?

> There are 10s of thousands of businesses in the US. It's hard to believe there'd be any remotely successful collusion in keeping wages down.

This takes many assumptions: People know of all these businesses. People are able and willing to move at a whim (not so easy with family/friends), people are willing to change their jobs every other month (for a business a job is just a transaction of money vs time, human beings, failed constructions that we are don't see it that simple) and so on. Neither the world nor people are completely rational, so things which work in theory often donThere are 10s of thousands of businesses in the US. It's hard to believe there'd be any remotely successful collusion in keeping wages don't work in reality.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#604

Post by Frondo » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:22 AM UTC

ghshephard wrote: post #577

PhilWright wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing unique or special about being a programmer. Programmers think they are undervalued and should get more. But guess what, nurses think they should get more as well because they are saving lives. Soldiers think they should get more for making us all safe. Police think they should get more for reducing the level of crime in society which benefits us all. Teachers think they should get more because they a…

Couple points - I didn't say there is anything unique or special about being a programmer from a skill perspective. Almost everyone who can graduate from high school can be taught to program, and put together useful applications. I tried to call that out when describing the difference between a day-day CRUD developer and platform developer. But there is a distinct hierarchy of developers who can, for example, instinc…

I'd disagree about the 100x something-other-than-a-coder having a limited impact.

I'd call Florence Nightingale a 100x nurse, or maybe a 10,000x nurse, for the impact she had on the world:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale#Statistic...

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#605

Post by ryandrake » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:23 AM UTC

morgante wrote: post #149

dvt wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, no. This adage is very very true. Sure, you can get a comfortable six figure salary, but that is by no stretch of the imagination "affluent". I'm defining rich as making 7 figures a year. I think that's a pretty fair assessment. You'll never get that working for someone else (especially as an engineer), barring extenuating circumstances. High equity employee #1 or co-founder is the way to go. High risk, high rewa…

A 7 figure annual income is setting the affluent definition very high. You can work at Google for a decade and end up a multi-millionaire, with enough money to retire to most places in the US. From your other comment, it seems like you haven't done the analysis on this. Top companies are routinely paying $200k-300k these days. That's enough to save a million dollars over a decade even if you have a family.

You're very likely talking about the top 0.1% employees at the top 0.1% of companies.

Every time salary is discussed on HN, inevitably someone brings up this "fact" that engineers are "routinely" making $200K or $300K or $400K or whatever other ridiculous figure. Given average Bay Area software engineer compensation being between $100K and $140K depending on your source, even at $200K we're probably talking at least 1 or 2 standard deviations from the mean. But there's no fighting HN anecdotes. There's always someone here who knows That Guy At Google Who Makes $300K or That Buddy's Roommate That Gets $400K Straight Out Of School At Facebook, and suddenly this turns into "everyone must be earning that much." Come on.

Yes. It is surely possible to work at Google for a decade and end up a multi-millionaire. It's possible to bowl 300, too, and hit 3 hole-in-ones in a row. It's astronomically more likely most people who work at Google or any other software engineering role for a decade will not end up multi-millionaires. Pretending otherwise grossly overstates the (admittedly okay) lifestyles and salaries most tech folks enjoy.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#606

Post by eon1 » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:27 AM UTC

aianus wrote: post #599

eon1 wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

..because the engineers have created things that the company can continue to profit off. They're not factory workers, they don't need to be there on the day-to-day to add that value, so it's a little disingenuous to suggest the impact would be seen "tomorrow". Still not having those engineers 6, 12, 24 months down the line might not look so happy, though.

You wouldn't attribute much of the value created by a Boeing 747 to the mechanic the maintains it, so why would you do so with the mechanics that maintain the AdWords money machine built ten years ago?

I'm not really sure what to make of this analogy. Are you suggesting that the mechanic maintaining a 747 is on the same level as the design and fabrication team who built it?

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#607

Post by Frondo » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:29 AM UTC

antisthenes wrote: post #154

blahi wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but this is straight up proletariat bull. You get hired, you get paid. If it doesn't pan out, you go somewhere else. You have 0 risk and a guaranteed career. And sorry, but 100k for a javascript "engineer" is more than the "fair share" in my opinion, but it's a market, so it is what it is.

Yes, I find it quite ironic that one of the most privileged groups on the planet is suddenly supporting an essentially communist argument of wage theft, as soon as there's even a slight possibility of them being underpaid. Apparently they are also entitled to unprecedented upward mobility. I sincerely doubt many software developers here spend any sleepless nights wondering what it would have been like had they been i…

Why shouldn't everyone care about getting paid as much as absolutely possible (i.e. the only meaningful definition of "not underpaid")?

It's a somewhat free market, shouldn't we all be striving to maximize our take? Or are you suggesting that the central planning committee should be handing out salary guides?

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#608

Post by winter_blue » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:40 AM UTC

mercutio2 wrote: post #595

winter_blue wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Heck, your marginal tax rate isn't even 40% That's wrong. The marginal tax for even a $50,000/year earner in NYC is over 42% . Source: http://arjun-menon.github.io/taxes-in-nyc/?income=50,000

There's actually no contradiction. Marginal tax rates go down 6.2% at 118,500 when social security cuts out, and they only go up about 3% from there to 200k. It's kind of outrageous, marginal tax rates going down for high earners, but there we are. But thanks for pointing out that I had the wrong zip code, so I missed NYC income tax, which is 3.65% marginal, bringing average tax rates at 200k to 36%, not 33% (albeit…

> Your link is in error, it treats Social Security tax as continuing past $118k.

Actually, the tool does stop adding Social Security after the income limit: http://arjun-menon.github.io/taxes-in-nyc/?income=200,000

> you'll deduct state income tax at the very least

The tool also factors in state income tax deductions. You'll see it deducted in the link above

The tool reports the marginal tax rate for a $200,000 earner as ~36%.

--

But yea, you're right, it sucks that $50k earners are taxed even more % than $200k earners. The employer pays payroll taxes of 7.65% (6.2% + 1.45%), so actual marginal taxes are ~50% from an employer cost perspective. It's truly insane.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#609

Post by twblalock » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:42 AM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #597

twblalock wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The guy digging proverbial ditches does indeed deserve more How do you know? Do you have some kind of special formula to determine what people deserve to be paid? Otherwise, it's just subjective.

Because I have a basic understanding of supply and demand. I even explained how supply of labor was being distorted in my post at both the higher and lower ends of the job market. I think the more appropriate question is how do you not know?

Ok, then what does a ditch digger deserve to be paid?

The answer is a number.

Re: Massachusetts Bans Employers from Asking Applicants About Previous Pay

#610

Post by SubiculumCode » Wed, Aug 03, 2016, 5:52 AM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #536

SubiculumCode wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there is risk...but so much investment is made by those that can afford to risk it..that is the risk of losing the investment is not losing your home and car or being thrown to the street. If risk is defined by surplus money alone then yes, investors take risks, but if you define risk as the chance of losing your livelihood and basic needs? Typing on a keyboard entails more risk. When the poor takes an investment…

No, it's the money itself which is risked. Everything else is adjacent. How much the specific individual holding the money actually values it is irrelevant. It's how much that you value the money that's relevant. What is $1,000 worth to you? Now, that question has a wide range of answers. In some places, that's literally worth multiple lives. Or it could be beyond insignificant. Obviously very few can or should take…

You are arbitrarily limiting the scope of risk to a unit of account without regard to what those units of account do or do not afford one in the world. That is too limited a definition to be useful IRL.