[matsemann]

Here in Norway all salaries are publicly searchable*. Based on my experience of this, I can't see what bad things will come of this?

If anything, hidden salaries only benefit employers, as they have all the knowledge.

* you can know everyone's taxable income and net worth. What deductions people have, other incomes etc aren't separated, so it's not an exact number.

[ceva]

That's Norway man it cannot be compared with rest of the world. In Albania or Balkan countries it would be very dangerous to leak such and info, people could die or be kidnaped or been looked differently, normally u don't tell your salary to anyone just like that.

[azinman2]

Does this mean you know how much your neighbors make? In America that would be very taboo…

[downwithbgp]

I worked for a public university in America, therefore being a public employee. Any of my neighbors could easily go to the state website and look up my income.

Frankly, I never felt that to be an issue. It was also nice to have that transparency in the workplace, all of my colleagues knew exactly how much any of us made.

[matsemann]

The press will publish all the highest earners in various segments, areas etc. So in the small municipality I'm from I'm used to the salaries and net worth of all the local business owners being in the newspaper.

In addition one can online search for whoever you want. Later years, one has to log in to check, and then the other person can see who have viewed their information. This has probably cooled it a bit. But can just get someone else to check for you..

[twodai]

This isn't a total cultural norm, if anything I think it's a view from america a few generations ago. For instance all of my friends and extended friend groups are open about our incomes.

With complete total strangers I would totally agree people generally don't lead with their salary. But after knowing people for a while it's come up a bunch and it's a taboo.

[azinman2]

We’re talking public record, which means total strangers.

[lcabral]

As a added point, the system in Norway was fully open up to a few years back. They have since changed it in a way that you need to login to lookup other people income and the person in cause then gets notified of whom looked it up. So that typically could end up in an ackward look from/towards your neighbors .

[opheliate]

As I understand it, you can also see exactly who has looked up your salary info, so it might make for some awkward conversations if your neighbour did search for you.

[BoorishBears]

That only works because Norway is a tiny homogeneous country .

(yes I know some Norwegian will angrily reply about how that's false, I have plenty family that emigrated there from West Africa but let's be real... if the US is the melting pot, Norway is the slightly warm shot glass.)

Add in large amounts of diversity, not just in terms of race but also in terms of socioeconomics and suddenly it doesn't work.

[matsemann]

Could this not be a small part in maintaining a smaller socioeconomic difference? Hard to underpay someone when they know what their role should pay.

[BoorishBears]

Lol no, it couldn't for any meaningful definition of "small part" if we're being realistic.

We're not talking about examining a black box here, you can just look at Norway's socioeconomic history and realize is not because they share salaries.

Not mismanaging profit from massive natural oil reserves, tiny relative population to all their resources (not just oil), and having a largely homogeneous population that valued education and social benefit.

All such major factors that sharing salary can't really be considered a meaningful data point.

-

It's more an effect of their situation than the opposite, they can still share salaries because things went so well, and the idea is to catch people who are abusing the tax collection system.

A quick search shows that while you could theoretically get someone's salary historically, it wasn't until the early 2000s it was made easy (presumably by making a standardized digital system)

Then in 2014 they added alerting to know who looked which resulted in a 90% drop in inquiries...

[matsemann]

Dont "lol no" people in a discussion, behave better.

[BoorishBears]

Throwing a tantrum as soon as you don't have anything left to say...

If I had left it at "lol no" (it was a funny point just looking at the country you're talking about...) at least I could see why you're upset.

But instead I still proceeded to break down why you're wrong in quite a detailed manner and school you a bit on the topic so you can go forward with a better informed view of the country.

The customary reply there isn't a tantrum, it's a "thank you" or a "that's interesting for me to learn". Some people really do forget how to behave the moment another person doesn't agree with them.

[matsemann]

You're really full of yourself, aren't you?

But fine, thank you for schooling me in arrogance.

[siva7]

That would be for example considered in Germany a huge breach of the citizens privacy. Simply unimaginable if you were raised in a country like Germany or US and i certainly support this to be private data.

[matsemann]

What if the benefits outweigh the downsides? It's not black and white.

[siva7]

What benefits? If i dont want this data to be public that is my decision which should be respected. I am glad that this is also the stance of my government.

[matsemann]

Harder to hide tax avoidance if everyone knows the ballpark of what you make. If you buy a new car each year but pay nothing in taxes, it's immediately obvious.

It can help lessen pay gaps. Between genders or other groups. Removes the power from the employers when you know what you should make.

Makes it easy to see if someone is making loads of money while underpaying their employees.