[jlgreco]

You ever listen to a friend, who has recently hit a rough patch, talking about their difficulty paying their bills and think "gee, this would be a rather inappropriate time to mention how much money I make."?

That is where the desire for wage privacy comes from for me. Talking about how much you make, outside the workplace, has no benefits. It is just going to make the conversation awkward, or somebody is going to feel bad about themselves, or somebody is going to get an irritating spark of envy where none needed to exist. As far as I am concerned, you may as well publicize dick length.

(Public employees opt-in to the public knowing how much they make. The reason the public gets to know in that case is because the public is paying that salary. There is an employee/employer relationship there.)

[RougeFemme]

I think public employees to the public knowing how much a particular job/role at a particular location on the salary ladder at a particular agency. But unless they share their particular role/ladder location with friends, I don't think they are opting into sharing their exact salary; only their salary range.

The people that I know who work for the federal government simply say "I'm a mathematician at NASA", not "I'm a GS-13, Step 4 mathematician and BTW, I got a bonus of X last year."

[revelation]

Employees and employer form a market like any other. Societal norms around "wage privacy" sabotages this market at the cost of employees.

[jlgreco]

Note my emphasis in this snippet of my comment: "Talking about how much you make, outside the workplace,..."

Discussing wages with your employers/colleagues has advantages, and without it collective bargaining is difficult to impossible. However coworkers account for a slight fraction of those that most people interact with.

There is no utility in me (someone who works in tech) telling my brother (who works in aerospace) how much I make, and vice versa.

[fleitz]

Exactly, the politics it causes invariably causes wages to rise. Always add 20% to whatever you are telling people.

[judk]

Citizens of a social democracy see this differently.

And non secret isy different from rubbing in someone's face