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Google Staffers Share Salary Info With Each Other; Management Freaks
Nerval's Lobster writes: Imagine a couple of employees at your company create a spreadsheet that lists their salaries. They place the spreadsheet on an internal network, where other employees soon add their own financial information. Within a day, the project has caught on like wildfire, with people not only listing their salaries but also their bonuses and other compensation-related info. While that might sound a little far-fetched, that's exactly the scenario that recently played out at Google, according to an employee, Erica Baker, who detailed the whole incident on Twitter. While management frowned upon employees sharing salary data, she wrote, "the world didn't end everything didn't go up in flames because salaries got shared." For years, employees and employers have debated the merits (and drawbacks) of revealing salaries. While most workplaces keep employee pay a tightly guarded secret, others have begun fiddling with varying degrees of transparency, taking inspiration from studies that have shown a higher degree of salary-related openness translates into happier workers. (Other studies (PDF) haven't suggested the same effect.) Baker claims the spreadsheet compelled more Google employees to ask and receive "equitable pay based on data in the sheet."
In the US, at least, they can't prevent it. If people want to talk about that, let them do it.
Employers afraid of employees asking for raises, film at eleven.
I bet the people getting paid more didn't ask to receive a lower wage.
I firmly believe that when job-hunting, you should know how much you'll be making when you apply. I've been through a number of interviews for what seemed to be great positions, only to have to turn them down after being offered the job because they weren't paying a decent wage for the job at hand.
Making public how much everyone is making goes a long way to keeping job-seekers aware of how much they are worth. Hiding salaries only helps companies, who can then keep low-balling people.
Back when I was in the Army, we all knew exactly how much everyone else made in base pay, from E1 to O9. That at least gave incentive to work up the chain from the bottom.
at a company before I started there... aftewards, meh not so much..
Remind me why would management not like that?
It has been so taboo at many of the places that I have worked to talk about salary.
The place I work now is very guarded about this as well. We recently had someone canned because they opened someone else's offer letter (which was sitting on a shared workstation).
I have always just assumed it was conspiracy cooked up in a board room full of men long ago as a way to enable pay inequality.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Then maybe they're doing something they shouldn't be.
until I read the punch line.
Baker claims the spreadsheet compelled more Google employees to ask and receive "equitable pay based on data in the sheet."
90% of drivers think they are better than the average driver, and I would bet 90%+ of workers think they are better than average, and would therefore expected to be paid above the median (note for the statistically challenged - 90% of a group cannot be above the median). This study will give them data to know where they are on the graph. How will management deal with 90% of their workers demanding to be paid more since they are being paid below what they think they should be based on their (biased) self-assessment?
if you have two people doing the same and one is grossly underpaid, he or she will not sit back and take it as bosses dish it out. What is so surprising about this?
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
The contracting agency gave me a new fancy title, "Senior Systems Administrator," based on 18 years of I.T. experience, when they renewed my contract. I pointed out that a Senior Systems Admin in Silicon Valley makes $40K more per year than what I'm getting paid now. I heard their frown all the way from the East Coast on my raise request. Didn't help that the company I'm assigned to gave me server access to fix a blotched printer migration.
The (American only?) taboo on discussing compensation simply perpetuates inequality. If it seems unfair it probably is.
As a salaried, unioned member of a crown corporation, my name, salary, overtime, and bonuses are all on public record because I make over 75k a year.
Needless to say, I'm very happy to know that I make more than both my boss and his boss (both salaried, but non-union so no overtime pay for them beyond standard rate).
Sometimes, it's good to know. Othertimes it's not. And it usually comes down to whether or not you believe you are compensated fairly.
If I was being compensated unfairly, I think I'd rather not know, especially if my only alternative was to seek alternative employment.
Management can get away with not paying the going rate if people aren't aware they are being short changed. Knowledge of what the going rate is should be enough to put some steel in their spines.
The big difficulty is that salary gets really complicated, really fast. It helps many people, but building the system that is equitable would be difficult, and all the positive outliers could be harmed in the process.
SCENARIO: Money is a little tight but applicants are plentiful. We interview lots of people, and three of them look very qualified and are willing to work for a certain wage in a tight range. All hired. Three months later the group discovers a unique need, needing a developer on a specific tool with specific skills. They'll be hired at the same job title, but because the group need a specialized skill immediately, they will go through a headhunter and ultimately pay a premium for that fourth worker. Now, because all four have the same job title, the critical question: should the company go back and increase the three other workers' pay to the same pay rate of the fourth worker with the specialized skill? Should they refuse to hire the specialist at a rate above the other three?
In some fields it can make sense to standardize pay. Most skilled trades operate this way. There is a standard rate in a region for a Journeyman with specific certifications. Trade unions can help fight for specific benefits. You know that this class of tradesman has a specific skill set and can be hired for $27/hour. You need four of them. All of them are treated as interchangeable.
In other fields it can make far less sense to standardize pay, mostly because there are many variables. Unfortunately software development is one of those fields where it is complicated. It would be really convenient -- both for applicants and employers -- to have such a scale. This is a Java programmer with seven endorsements certified at grade 27, so pay is automatically $x.
But unfortunately for this field, technology is ALWAYS changing, so the scale would be difficult. You were certified in version 3.2, but the system has moved on to version 4.1. Does that individual lose the old certification? If they take the new industry trade group's course do they now have 8 certifications instead of seven? Do certifications expire over time, or transfer between technologies? With the huge number of technologies out there, does that mean we'll have thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of different certifications for the trade union? How are individual certifications weighted, and how are they equivalent? Is a master Direct3D 12 certification the same value as a master PostgreSQL 9.4 certification? Is a PostgreSQL 9.4.4 certification valued differently than a PostgreSQL 9.3.9 certification? If someone has certifications in other specializations, must those apply in the cost? With the rapid pace of an enormous number of technologies, what prevents someone from getting hundreds of certifications? Such as "I've got 47 certifications, one for each version of the software released over the past two years"? While it works good for slower-moving trades, it does not work so well in software.
Sometimes I feel it would be nice to have programming trade unions. There are many features like collective bargaining for benefits that could be nice. But for actual salary levels, union-based standardized wages would be a nightmare. It would add a convenience factor to ensure new workers have certain minimum competencies, but it unfortunately adds maximum values as well. Nobody wants to know that they could be making more due to market pressure.
By establishing fixed buckets of pay levels, it establishes both a minimum (yay) and a maximum (boo) within a region. If you've got any kind of specialization or exotic skill -- and many of us do -- those same pay buckets that help many people also hurt the top performers.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
For those that have worked in the public sector this is often the norm -- at least it was where I worked. Back in the dark ages (pre Internet) the State Audit department published a book with every employee's actual earnings and travel expenses annually. That document was a public record and available to anyone who knew about it and took the trouble to get a copy. When the Internet came along the data is now on line and searchable on a public web site. When vendors came to sell us the latest and greatest security gismo or software their standard example of confidential information was the employee salary data. Once it was on line I always got a kick out of going to the Web site and calling up the application and showing them that salary data was NOT at all confidential where we worked!
All that does is put more steel into the spines of those who ARE aggressive, thus hurting the company's bottom line and making everyone temporarily feel like they have more money (until inflation takes care of things)
While interviewing for jobs last year, I ran into a former coworker who was still working at the same company and making slightly more money than I did when we worked together nine years ago. He stayed in the same position and accepted 2% pay raises over those nine years. I did short-term contract work — anywhere from a day to a year — for various Fortune 500 companies in Silicon Valley, making 80% more money because I have much broader range of experiences in assignment and corporate cultures. Go figure.
At every company there's someone that works harder than you and makes far less money than you. Conversely, there's also someone that works far less than you and makes way more money than you.
No matter what you make, there is someone who is going to be jealous and will try to undermine you.
Management didn't "freak". The spreadsheet in question is alive and well, and Google employees continue adding their information to it (I did). If management really wanted gone, it would be taken down. Erica Baker's manager wasn't happy about it, and she was invited to talk to her manager about it. It may or may not have bothered someone above her manager; Erica doesn't know and neither do we.
Her manager also chose to interpret the peer bonus rules such that the bonuses peers sent her forward weren't given to her. That's at least partly correct on her manager's part. The peer bonus rules say that any given action/effort can only be rewarded once. If the manager feels that it was a really valuable contribution the manager can choose to discard the peer bonus ($125) and instead award a larger spot bonus (amount variable), but only one peer bonus per act.
What is a little bit weird was that Erica said peer bonuses were rejected before one was approved, so the rejections before the approval weren't due to the one PB per action rule. Also weird is that Erica said her colleague got multiple bonuses for the spreadsheet. That shouldn't normally happen.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I would sure as hell like to know what people made
at a company before I started there... aftewards, meh not so much..
That's a bit short sighted...
Esp given the current trend of paying new people in this competitive job market more than current employees for similar positions...
Although if you don't care about being underpaid, I guess it doesn't matter much...
"Secret salaries" is a classic prisoners dilemma, but with a twist. Here the prisoners are allowed to communicate to achieve the statistically best mutual outcome, but the statistically best mutual outcome also comes with the slight penalty that the one with the best outcome currently (highest paid for position) not only receives no direct benefit, but also receives a slight penalty in that if others use the information to say, get a raise, their highest paid position will be lessened or eliminated.
Now statistically, in a company with thousands of employees, many with roughly the same "position" the logical thing to do would be to share, as odds are extremely good you aren't in that highest paid position and thus can only receive benefit. But the idea that you *MIGHT* be has probably kept employees from doing this before now.
Inflation isn't a problem, as the current rate is well below the Fed's target rate of 2%. Where most people get into trouble is thinking that they deserve finer things in life when they make more money. Hence, bigger houses, bigger cars and bigger TVs. It isn't long before they find themselves in the same predicament they were in before, still thinking that more money would solve all their problems.
Your salary and compensation is personal information and your company should never share without your permission. (Unless there is a public reporting requirement, of course).
However, I don't see why you can't choose to share your own salary information. My only concern would be that there could become some sort of pressure group so that everyone has to do so.
I think it is a bad idea to share salaries except in the most anonymous of manners. I don't mind someone knowing how much a person with my job title makes on average, but its a big deal if someone knows exactly what I make. There are lots of considerations that go into salary numbers, and those can't be adequately assessed by simply sharing the numbers.
When you have Glassdoor, PayScale and others out there sharing reviews and salaries. A spreadsheet is the state of the art at Google? They just lost their cred with me.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Not paying people their going rate is a sign of weakness in your business. It shows a lack of confidence in your employees and your projections based off their performance. Any CEO that pats himself on the back over keeping his salaries low is going to find there's only ever one person giving him pats on the back.
usually has a clause explicitly saying we can't discuss our pay with other contractors. I always found this a bit evil, since it's only purpose is to depress wages overall. But if Google doesn't include such a clause in their employment contract, too bad for them.
As a state employee, my salary is a public record, along with all my colleagues. Nobody cares.
I worked for a university that paid its lecturers based on years with the university and level of terminal degree (a PhD was worth $50/course than a master's degree; no extra $ for multiple degrees at any level). Everyone knew (or could have easily determined) what I earned and vice-versa. It didn't quell grumbling in the ranks, but I don't think anyone was upset by that aspect of our situation.
Geology - it's not rocket science; it's rock science
Anyone?
Requiem for the American Dream
I'm more experienced than almost everyone in every company I've ever worked at and I know my pay does not measure up.
Maybe I've been working at the wrong places, and I also have no interest in applying somewhere that employs over 100 people.
Some employees deserve more compensation than others. Get over it.
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
Some 30 years ago I worked for a company where discussing salary info with co-workers was cause for dismissal. Problem was, they had a boatload of titles, each title had maybe a 5k range in salary. The titles and salaries with each said title was easily available.
The problem? Everyone had their title printed on the business cards, and the company directory listed everyone's title. So I didn't need to ask how much you made. You were a widget master 3, therefor you made from 20-25k.
My company does management training yearly, and every time they remind us that per NLRB rules, we can't tell employees not to discuss salary info amongst themselves. And unless you're being a shitty employer to begin with and treating people unfairly, you shouldn't really care if people discuss it. As long as you can rationally explain to a judge why different people are paid differently, who cares?
Where most people get into trouble is thinking that they deserve finer things in life when they make more money. Hence, bigger houses, bigger cars and bigger TVs. It isn't long before they find themselves in the same predicament they were in before, still thinking that more money would solve all their problems.
Inflation IS a problem, because people think they at least deserve the same things they could afford last year, but because companies are too cheap to give COLA, you are effectively getting paid less every year and can't afford the things you could last year.
However, as far as getting more money goes, I agree that an extra 10 or 20% isn't going to mean much for very long, but I used to make more than 4 times (adjusted for inflation) what I make right now, and I can tell you that that money DID solve all my problems. I could save up for a couple months and buy a car for cash if I wanted to. I was putting $3k to $4k into mutual funds every month. I had no credit card debt. Now, I am underpaid and have eaten through all that I saved up in that period and more, and I have credit card debt again because I had to take out money to live on. I have sold the cars and the stocks, and moved into a cheaper house. But I know I could comfortably live with breathing room on about 40% of what I used to make back in 1998 (adjusted for inflation).
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
While interviewing for jobs last year, I ran into a former coworker who was still working at the same company and making slightly more money than I did when we worked together nine years ago. He stayed in the same position and accepted 2% pay raises over those nine years. I did short-term contract work — anywhere from a day to a year — for various Fortune 500 companies in Silicon Valley, making 80% more money because I have much broader range of experiences in assignment and corporate cultures. Go figure.
Businesses are stupid. They won't pay you raises even if you ask for them. They would rather you quit and then they will have to hire somebody else and train them, losing months of productivity and probably having to pay 120% or more of your salary to attract the talent, rather than just give you a lousy 10% raise.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Base salary and bonuses are not the only forms of compensation to think about. Depending on your position you may have paid conferences and training that you are sent to. You may have a paid cell phone, internet services, bring your own device voucher, new technologies voucher, company vehicles, holiday and paid time off, stock options, retirement, health and wellness benefits, coveted vendor "gifts", etc. I could share my base salary and it would be an interesting to others. But it wouldn't show all the various other ways that my company might do to keep me happy. Sometimes compensation is hard to monetize as well. For one person time off or flexible working may be more valuable than increased pay.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
If you click through to the "article," you'll get a long list of ten-word sentences formatted as tweets. When did this become an even remotely acceptable way of presenting something?
Good lord. If you work for Google, can't you figure out how to create a blog? My mother did it.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Businesses are stupid. They won't pay you raises even if you ask for them.
Sounds like your boss has you well trained. You won't ever ask for a raise because you won't expect to get it.
Inflation IS a problem
"The latest inflation rate for the United States is 0.1% through the 12 months ended June 2015 as published by the US government on July 17, 2015."
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/
but because companies are too cheap to give COLA
"PayScale anticipates U.S. wage growth of 0.4 percent year over year in Q3 2015"
http://www.payscale.com/payscale-index/
so you are wrong on two counts, inflation is not a problem, and wages are in fact rising faster than inflation
these clauses are unenforceable, but apparently you don't know that.
i bet they figured out you were a sucker and screwed you over in about 20 different ways, and you don't even know it.
The Inflation Calculator doesn't take into account the fact that the inflation indicator is a lie. How else does stuff cost twice as much as it did 5 years ago when inflation has only gone up maybe 20%? Inflation says a box of cookies only costs 20% more now than it did 5 years ago, but it doesn't take into account that the box of cookies weighs only 60% of what it did 5 years ago. Cases of soda still cost the same amount, but wait, cases of soda only have 20 cans in them now instead of 24.
Wages growing at 0.4% may beat the inflation numbers, but it doesn't beat how much stuff actually increases in price every year. And there are still hug numbers of employers that consistently give 0% for raise or Cost of Living Adjustment every single year, and there is no arguing that you as an employee have made yourself more valuable to them during that year and should be paid more than a COLA. It is an insult that they don't give you a raise, and a slap in the face that they don't give you a COLA.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Businesses are stupid. They won't pay you raises even if you ask for them.
Sounds like your boss has you well trained. You won't ever ask for a raise because you won't expect to get it.
No, I asked for raises several times a year, and was always told lies and delay tactics.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
No, I asked for raises several times a year, and was always told lies and delay tactics.
you're still there, proof positive
Open inequality makes management's life difficult at times, but there's ZERO legal basis for a US manager to tell you to keep quiet about salary; we can't legally shut you up and can't retaliate if you talk.
It's common practice to tell employees to keep mum about their salaries, but we as management can't legally do it as a practical matter (otherwise things like unions wouldn't work).
So managers (myself included) need to just (wo)man up and deal with it. That said, it'd be nice if employees did act with some modicum of discretion for team harmony reasons (nice to have, but not required).
Cases of soda still cost the same amount, but wait, cases of soda only have 20 cans in them now instead of 24.
What orifice do you pull this shit out of?
http://www.amazon.com/Coca-Cola-Classic-12-Ounce-Cans/dp/B004JXBHQK
http://www.amazon.com/Pepsi-Cola-12-Ounce-Cans-Pack/dp/B004JX9FDM
http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/368420/Barqs-Root-Beer-12-Oz-Cans/
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Hansen-s-Beverage-Diet-Ginger-Ale-Soda-12-oz-6ct-Pack-of-4/17197594
you must live in some strange weird alternate universe where soda cases have 20 cans, it sure isn't this one
Wow...Google just got schooled by their own belief that information is power.
Again, sharing salaries is a good thing, but does it scale? Gov't (GS levels are well known) indicates no considering their efficiency and employee satisfaction...
One's never going to get away from corporate politics, as much as the young googlers want to in their vision of the "sharing economy":
sharing = exploitation^2; // as the saying goes....
... for taboos.
It's not like most workplaces need more reasons for friction and resentment.
As if CEOs care about long term viability anymore.
Not when their self pat$ on the back are lucrative and they can jump to some other ship they can sink.
http://www.gadgette.com/2015/07/23/former-google-employee-erica-baker-speaks-out-about-the-gender-pay-gap/
Former employee Erica Baker ...
..."
"Before leaving the company in March 2015, thousands of Google staff has added to the document – 5% of 50,000 staff members, who contributed salaries, compensation packages, experience and bonuses.
As in they can say, no, we won't give you a raise, Jennifer does the same job for less and she's been here longer. Maybe next year.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
In Norway, every tax payer can go to a government website and check the income, net worth and paid tax of every other tax payer.
Is KNOWING what employee X gets paid while drooling on themselves, never doing anything nor showing any interest in learning anything. All the while you're busting your ass doing 2x the work because Captain Saliva is incapable of doing it at all.
Why should they show any motivation ?
Their pay is exactly the same as the top performing people without all the hard work and stress that comes with it. On paper the work gets done. The reality is it gets done by a fraction of the folks.
It is, however, a double edged sword. The top performers eventually burn out and question why they're working so damn hard when the pay is the same. Eventually, all the employees eventually align themselves with the bottom performers and the whole thing goes to hell.
Sometimes it sucks not being in a positio where you can negotiate salary. :|
They still have 24 packs, but the 20 packs cost what the 24 packs used to cost. And yes, there are 20 packs out there.
Wal-Mart
Amazon
Office Depot seems to only sell the 24 packs. For $12.99. 3 years ago I was stocking soda for our soda machine and the 24 pack cases were $6.99, sometimes $4.99 on sale. Wal-mart sells the 20 pack cases for $6.48, which at first makes you think the price of a case of soda has gone down, until you see that it went down in price by 8% and down in quantity by 20%.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
No, I asked for raises several times a year, and was always told lies and delay tactics.
you're still there, proof positive
I am? Could have fooled me.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
He ran to management and dropped a dime -- "Perlface" is making more than me and he just got his bachelors.... So he got a raise that management didn't think he deserved. And I got a talking to.
I guess the problem in my case was that management was just too chicken shit to tell him "you aren't worth it bro."
However, if we had lock step salaries based on credentials and experience I would have been making less than the less productive Masters dude, which would have sucked as well.
I work for a state university and as part of the state government, our salaries are subject to open records laws.
The student newspaper publishes an entire section every year listing the pay of all ~10,000 employees.
Keep salary info private? That edition has the best reading of the year!
If your employer/manager implies otherwise, or discriminates against you in any way for discussing compensation, they are in legal hot water.
In practice, sharing your salary in personally identifiable way is probably not beneficial for your career. Coworkers who earn less are likely to be resentful, and those who earn more may feel you must be somehow inferior. Sites like glassdoor are probably the best balance of transparency and privacy.
It should be pointed out that in society, and in democracy there exists an equilibrium created reflecting the actual balance of supply versus demand.
When a group is exempt to this, and a rule is created where salary information is not allowed to be shared, and employers set the supply and demand curve to where it suits their profit model, they are essentially manipulating the supply and demand numbers to suit their own profit model.
NO wonder why employers freak out here! They are surely burning in their seats because they don't want employees demanding the market rate or greater for the job they are doing, before even getting to the issue of being compensated for things like, education, experience, cost of living and their own personal "Value added" that they bring to the job. The employers want to go along and pay everyone coming into the business like they are entry level, and here in this special private little world where the employers are guarding all of the doors and holding all the keys, they define entry level as something on the order of 1/3 the going market rate for entry level.
I say, everyone should secretly share their salary information, that way if you or someone else is being undervalued by an unscrupulous employer trying to "Buy low and sell high" to an extreme degree and to the employee's detriment, the undervalued employees will know they are being screwed and have the liberty of standing up for themselves, demanding higher pay or going elsewhere. This is going to happen anyway because nothing ever remains a secret forever and information , as RMS has demonstrated to the world, wants to be free. This was the writing on the wall all along.
Go ahead and flame me, mod me down, say I am demonstrating convoluted logic, but all the while you know I am right.
when googlers were getting state support (those in their datacenter) because of being underpaid. The good old days when google wasn't evil yet... owh wait!
...and bonus, and stock, compensation, and promotion history. Those lazy farks deserve to make less. My NBA season tickets don't pay for themselves.
The HR department is stupid enough to put it in a directory for all us to see.
It is cool to write man up, you fucking pussy with an huge mangina.
i'm glad that i'm not on that list.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
... how much does Anonymous Coward make?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Or, you know... you could just make that information all public and see what happens.
Anybody employed by a government agency is used to not only having the salary of their position public, but having their names and salaries published in major newspapers for everybody to read:
Example
Another
Another
Another
Another
I think we can all agree that the salaries of government positions should be public, but I'm not sure publishing actual people's names, positions, and salaries in a public database is ethical.
In Sweden you can look up how much anyone else makes on the internet. It's all public information.
The reason you're seeing new packaging with slightly smaller sizes isn't some conspiracy to help the government cover up inflation (why?), but because of an opposite fact: Wal-Mart has gone seriously into groceries lately and is treating its suppliers the same way it treats non-grocery suppliers. It expects businesses to sell to it at a loss.
Problem is that margins for grocery suppliers are already razor thin. So they're trying to match Wal-mart's price demands by reducing the cost of each product, which, in this case, means changing the quantities per package.
Usually, though not always, the strange quantities do not make their way into real supermarkets like Publix. But occasionally they do - sometimes it's easier to just sell one product, and you notice, and you think it's a conspiracy.
Inflation by any real measure is static or going down. A gallon of milk cost around $4.20 six months ago. It's approx $3.50 here now. A gallon of concentrated orange juice was $5 six months ago, now it's $4 (and I'm not talking sale prices.)
You don't notice these things because you never notice when things go down in price as much as when they go up. When things go up you worry about whether you can afford to continue eating what you eat. When they go down, you think "Oh, that's nice" and carry on.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I was curious about the 'official' inflation rate and put it (from the Fed) against the Big Mac Index; in my findings for the past 5 years the Big Mac Index indicates that the 'official inflation rate' is 20% lower than what the Big Mac Index (used to compare international currencies) indicates.
While there are problems with the measurement of inflation by the government, the specific issue you site is not one of them. They do not track the price of a "box" cookies without looking at how big the box is.
You don't fix this kind of problem (perverse market incentives) by adding another layer to 'correct' for the results. You fix this kind of problem by addressing the underlying incentives in some fashion.
The underlying incentive here is that there's a benefit to keeping salary information private. (Whether that benefit is merely perceived or real is irrelevant.) One obvious solution to this is to have the SEC require that all salaries and compensation data at publicly listed companies be made public, similar to how all government salary data is public. Public companies already have to run open books anyway. This just extends that a bit.
Alter Aeon Multiclass MUD - http://www.alteraeon.com
I make roughly $34.62 /hour or $6000 per month doing Linux system admin work in a large Midwest city. Give your numbers and location below. This is about $14k per year more then I was making doing similar work at a University.
The inflation numbers you see everywhere are a lie, or at least so oversimplified that they might as well be a lie.
http://www.businessinsider.com...
Cheap storage VM.
... also tells people not to share salary information. Admittedly not going to be in the same range as Google, but still ...
Just last year Wal-mart finally committed to raise all their wages to over $10/hr - by next year, not immediately. But still, next year that cartpusher who helps you with your groceries will be making at least $10/hr.
Services inflation is way higher than the "basket of goods" the Fed uses to target inflation. That's why software engineers typically get more than 2% raises a year, health insurance costs more, etc.
But by the iPad Gen 1 index, inflation is way down. By the gold index, we're in deflation. By the California water index, inflation is out of control. But those aren't really indexes. They're just prices. The BLS puts a *ton* of effort into creating an index of what people actually buy that's comparable from year to year. A single price randomly sampled just won't do it. If you ask the average American, they seem to think they spend 95% of their income on gasoline and milk. But they don't. They spend a moderate percentage of their income on gas and hardly any of it on milk. They probably don't remember the 1/10th of a refrigerator they "bought" this year due to depreciation, for example.
The reality is that the BLS numbers match up well with the independent billion price index and with inflation expectations built into the financial markets. The odds that shadowstats or some other bogus index is the "real" index are slim to none. If we were really getting hammered at the the rates that, say, shadowstats, would have us believe, we'd all be destitute and we'd have noticed at least some captial flows following the money.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Take a look at the BLS data instead of sampling single data points. Like most people, your estimate of inflation is based on your gut and not on real data. Think about it this way: Assuming you're spot-on about soda and the price is climbing rapidly, what percentage of the average American household income goes to buying soda? How would even a small change in the price of some other good affect the usefulness of that data point?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
My co-worker suggested why he was so upset about his pay. We work at a manufacturer as mechanics. He has been there 5 years, is the go-to guy, was trained in every department, works hard and fast, gets more stuff done than any 3 guys.... And I make more than him but I've been there less than two years and trained in only one department. He put his two week notice in a few days ago. I don't blame him.
All salaries are public in the state of Montana. Any state employee's salary can be seen on the checkbook page by employee name or agency. So what's the big deal?
I never said that the Big Mac Index was the be-all end-all of indices; however, it is obvious then that the metrics in the index are important, and assuming Big Brother (the government) knows or cares best is an example of passive gullibility. The Big Mac Index was much more conformant to the 'official' inflation index over five years prior -- only in the last five years has the Big Mac Index diverged so significantly; perhaps as you indicate the iPad 1 is an important part of their metric that helps them paint a rosey picture of inflation?
All the media fuzz around about that spreadsheet, but the real interesting and relevant information is always missing: it's the salary distribution (e.g, a graph that shows the salary range on the x axis, say grouped by 1000 dollar steps, and the frequency of salaries within that group on the y axis... then more detailed data by department or task as well as other factors... so one could have an actual idea of how much google pays and what factors might influence the pay. So where can i get either that data (can be anonymized, i don't care about the names)... or, if not available.... where can i download the spreadsheet?
There's a simple reason for that: The price of a Big Mac is probably driven mostly by volatile inputs like food and energy. Food an energy are only a part of the overall inflation picture, and they're generally not leading indicators of long term trends. There are two key CPI numbers: headline and core. Core removes volatile components like food and energy because they tend not to be built into long-term inflation expectations. When headline and core diverge significantly, the divergence generally goes away in the near future, and it generally goes away when the headline number moves back toward the core number, not the other way around.
Long term, inflation is driven mostly by expectations and the interaction between expectations and wages. Spikes or drops in the price of oil or beef tend to revert to historical norms, so while they make for interesting charts in the news, they're not really all that useful for long-run predictions because they don't really provide steady enough "feedback" to feed into slower moving prices like wages. The divergence between the Big Mac index and our other inflation metrics is likely driven by that phenomenon rather than an actual failure of the broader metrics.
Anyway, it's not a matter of "assuming" the BLS knows best. You'll find that people who actually study this stuff and use the data think they put out a very useful set of indices and have very good reasons to ignore outliers like the Big Mac index. The BLS basket of goods is very broad, well analyzed and completely public. Every quarter we hear the big headline about something like, "Chicken prices spiraling out of control! Inflation to come!" Not unless the public at large *really* eats tons and tons of chicken and the trend continues for some time. There are other cross-checks that are pretty easy to do. For example, if the Big Mac Index was truly reflective of reality, we'd be seeing massive capital flight from the US to foreign markets with better inflation numbers. If you know the dollar is losing 10% in inflation every year, just sell your dollar-denominated assets, buy Japanese bonds with yen and enjoy your nearly risk free ~12% real return in dollars. Either the big money (who are presumably the puppet masters driving this whole scam) is too dumb to do this or that's really not how the numbers work out. Either that or all currencies everywhere are inflating at roughly the same rate without feeding back into wages anywhere, but that would be a really interesting macroeconomic state of affairs.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
You are totally missing out on an opportunity to lord your success over your peers. You should feel free to call them minions or vassals; Also, I whole-heartedly recommend using the salary information in your next meeting. "Well, George, from the look of things I make almost twice what you do. Apparently no one who matters actually cares what you think, so STFU."
Winning friends and influencing people through transparency...
I've seen this repeatedly. Management likes to have power and thus sets up these cultural taboos. "You can't share salary information because it's bad."
Yet when I worked in a union, the salary scale was published, as was the slotting of every position into that scale. Anyone could figure out what any unionized employee was getting paid, base salary, to within a thousand dollars or so. It took maybe 5 minutes work.
And you know what? The whole thing was a non-issue. It rarely came up in any context. There were lots of issues in that environment and the transparency of the pay system simply was not an issue.
My take is that this practice is a reflection of the idea that information is power, and withholding salary information must make management more powerful.
out loud. ;)
Unfortunately, the government apologists will still say 'Well that can't be true' or 'Food and energy are not in core inflation!'
The price of (say) a price of halfway decent beef by the pound or kilo has gone up by about 75% in the last couple of years, but that's not inflation, oh no. Don't forget the shrinkage of packaging as you mention.
But if you're a nation of people who live in fast food, you're fine.
since you believe that the public interest is yours to exploit.
I hope people post your salary on this thread.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
and there is strong evidence that dynamic is in play... then it's good enough for the help too.
Curroption widely distributed tends to benefit the broader public interest more than limited corruption.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
Since, in this day and age, labor is less and less required and makes less and less sense as a basis for distributing basic human needs, the only real purpose it serves is to "keep the working-class poor", as Arthur Young put it. So why are we playing along again?
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
Catch-22 goes both ways.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
Well, good. What kind of desperate tool are you that would want to? Do enough and go home, and stop racing one another to the bottom, instead of conspiring with management to get far less than what you should have just because you need to grandstand.
Get over yourself. For real.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
Same story in Finland:
they say, a cup of coffee was something around 1.5-2 Finnish marks (before switch to euro), now it's at least 2€ (http://keskustelu.suomi24.fi/t/10766202/mitahan-se-kahvikupponen).
5-6 times increase...
Bags of Doritos used to cost $3.00 for a 14 ounce bag. Now that same $3.00 only buys 10.5 ounces. Before the 14 ounce bags, Doritos used to cost $3.00 for a 16 ounce bag.
In just 4 years, frozen concentrated orange juice has gone from $1.00 for a 12 ounce can to $1.50 for a 12 ounce can.
Even for things where the quantity has not changed, the quality of the good has changed for the worse.
If you really believe inflation is as low as the agencies say, you're either very, very wealthy (minimum 8-figure net worth) or you're liar, intentionally or not.
The garbage that the agencies use to calculate inflation include tricks such as substitution (ground beef instead of steak) and including a deflator for computers that cost the same as in the past but are now more powerful.
Create an inflation index that is based upon the things that people not and not the things that people want and you'll see very ugly numbers. The explanations from the economists that certain products such as food and energy being excluded due to volatility is legerdemain. They could just as easily use a running average to smooth things out. They don't because the real rate of inflation would result in torches and pitchforks.