Post Your Salary Online? Sounds Like a Bad Idea!

Would you ever be tempted to post your salary for the world to see? Some are doing just that…though they’re not posting their names.

If you saw a few Buzzfeed articles lately, you may have felt the temptation to post your salary, along with your job title, in a comment. Writer Ryan Schocket first reported that a Reddit user invited people to list their job and annual salary.

For reasons I don’t understand, many chose to do just that.

My guess is they did so because they’re identifying themselves only by their usernames, virtually all of which don’t seem to include their name. So at least there’s that.

I don’t know many bosses who would relish their employees posting that information. Even without their actual identities posted, if a co-worker recognized a user name, it could cause problems in the workplace. No one would want that.

Schocket calls it “super eye-opening.” Then again, on Buzzfeed, they say nearly everything is eye-opening, right? If it weren’t, you probably wouldn’t find it on Buzzfeed.

So what do people claim they make?

A high school art teacher in an “expensive northern state” makes ” just shy of $60,000″ per year before taxes. But that teacher adds he or she must work two afterschool teaching jobs that pay $30 per hour to pay bills.

A welding engineer in Detroit started at $65,000 eight years ago. Today, that engineer brings home $100,000.

In an unknown state, a car salesperson earned $170,000 in 2021. The post doesn’t say what make of cars is involved.

A law partner with 10 years of practicing under his/her belt earns $800,000, gets bonuses and incentives and enjoys “excellent health and dental coverage” and three to four weeks of vacation.

“Of course, I work long hours (read: rarely any weekends are free) and am expected to bill at least 60 hours a week,” the lawyer adds.

A general manager at a Panda Express makes $106,000.

A mail carrier for “an inner city” makes $70,100…until you add in overtime. That brought the salary to $150,000. With enough overtime to more-than-double a worker’s salary, one has to wonder what’s going on at the Postal Service!

A licensed professional counselor brings home $33,000 a year despite having a master’s degree and being “a sneeze away” from finishing a PhD. That person might need counseling for reconciling their college debt against that low a salary.

A “master of the custodial arts” makes $17.50 per hour. Assuming 40 hours per week, that adds up to $36,400.

Would you post your salary publicly?

I wouldn’t. Nope. Not me.

A 2019 article in the Seattle Times asks if doing so could get you fired.

“The short answer is: Yes, you could, but it would be illegal,” the article states. Two attorneys argue firing an employee under such conditions would violate a federal law. But the problem is there are some states, like my home state of South Carolina, that are “right-to-work” states. Your employer doesn’t necessarily need a specific reason to terminate you. So they might not admit to firing you if they’re breaking a labor law. But if they don’t have to give a reason, how would you prove it?

But you have to keep in mind when you see other peoples’ salaries that it may not be just the job or even the location. Different people make different amounts for a variety of reasons. (And I’m not talking about discrimination…though that could certainly account for some discrepancies.)

In my case, I probably make more than some of my counterparts at other places. But I have 30 years of experience. At the same time, I know for a fact that some of my counterparts with less experience make more than I do. They live in places with significantly higher standards of living.

You have to compare apples with apples. When all you have is a job title, salary, only a vague notion of the location and next to nothing about experience, you can’t make a fair comparison.

Yes, it’s interesting. But it may serve to discourage you more than it encourages you.

I wouldn’t post my salary. I do understand why some might feel there’s no harm in posting theirs. I’m just not so sure that it’s as harmless as they may think it is.