New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

Post by yodsanklai » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 9:20 PM UTC

Sangermaine wrote: post #154

cracell wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thank you. My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make. I also have never told a potential employer my salary. I believe it stopped things from going on to the interview stage but the way they took my refusal made me assume they paid under market rate.

>No thank you. >My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make. But have you thought about why you feel this way? I assume you are American, as am I, and so I understand we've been socialized by our culture to feel this way, but it really makes no sense. It's just a way to harm workers by keeping us from seeing when we're being screwed. I'd even go so far as to wager that this entir…

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 9:21 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #202

cracell wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thank you. My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make. I also have never told a potential employer my salary. I believe it stopped things from going on to the interview stage but the way they took my refusal made me assume they paid under market rate.

As a counterpoint, if it wasn't for all the friendly people on HackerNews and similar places talking about how big their salaries are, I would still be stuck in Eastern Europe happy to write code for $7/hour. The biggest capitalist victory has been convincing people that sharing salary information is impolite. It benefits "the ruling class" in several ways. First it prevents people from realizing they're underpaid an…

Post by CodeWriter23 » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 9:23 PM UTC

jackfoxy wrote: post #194

> if applicants ask — must give them a pay range for the job they are seeking I find this a much bigger deal. This gives applicants much more leverage and wastes less of their time. No non-competes in California, and now this.

Post by ryandrake » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 9:25 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #183

ianai wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually in this case it’s the buyers of labor (employers) that have all the market power. Denything them this additional information gives the producers of labor an edge through asymmetric information, theoretically. In practice, I don’t buy it. Sophisticated entities with lots of resources (aka employers) will always find a way to game any situation to their benefit. They could simply use this as a reason to pay ev…

It isn't just an information problem, it is a leverage problem. Suppose a company has 100 employees; if an employee leaves, they are down 1/100 of their productivity while they find a replacement. If an employee if fired, they are down somewhere between 50% and 100% of their income, depending on family status. A single job is simply more vital to an employee than it is to a company, so the company has the leverage.

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 18, 2017, 9:26 PM UTC

mamon wrote: post #116

rpowers wrote: post #38

Really wish this would extend to apartment rent applications. I'm fine with a credit check, but they don't need to know how high they can increase my rent before I'll need to move. edit I am referring to my experience renting apartments from Property Management run communities. (Think Essex or Prometheus) Rent increases every year with them.

They really do that in America? I rented a lot of apartments in my country and was never asked about my income, or had a credit check. The usual way of avoiding not paying renters is requiring first rent plus guarantee deposit (usually equal to the one month rent) in advance. No further proofs of financial credibility required.