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by dzolvd 1416 days ago
in what industry does your previous salary not matter? (Not a snarky ask btw.) I have never entertained an offer blow my current salary, so personally find them highly correlated (sw eng).
2 comments

Previous salary can’t affect future salary unless you let the previous salary be known.
There is a bit of a bias to this.

Higher salaries will get disclosed more, because if I get an offer below my current salary, then I can disclose and at the very least get a match or refuse the offer. At a lower salary, there is a higher probability that the offer is higher, and my current salary does not matter.

I believe that people more rarely accept a downgrade in salary, so the probably of acceptance is also conditioned on the current salary. What this means is that the effect is biased and probably non-linear, but I wouldn't qualify it as non effect.

Nobody is talking about previous salary, the $3k/$5k thing was about yearly performance bonuses.
My argument is general enough to cover that case too. Performance bonuses don't compound long term for the same reason.