13 ms·

Norway, where no salaries are secret

253 points by tpatke 9y ago

cjbprime 9y ago
Wow, surprised I'd never heard of this.
kisstheblade 9y ago
We have the same thing in Finland. Only you can't access the info easily online, you have to go to the tax office and use their terminal. But there you can stalk your neighbors and friends anonymously. Although newspapers publish lists of all people earning 150k/year and make a big thing about the income of celebrities. What I haven't understood is if tax records are public why aren't social security payments etc. also public? So you could see who possibly "games" the system in benefits? I mean if the point of public tax data is to be "open" (=have everybody snitching for the government).
- enriquto 9y ago
  This is great, salaries shouldn't be secret! Accessing the info in a terminal makes sense. However, why is it anonymous? I would like to know, also, who has been reading my info, and when.
  - kisstheblade 9y ago
    So that you can snitch (anonymously, on the net, there is a website for this). https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/contact-us/efil/reporting-suspected-tax-evasion/ https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/contact-us/efil/reporting-su... But agreed, the model in norway is better, so that you can see who has accessed your info.
  - patrickaljord 9y ago
    Edit: if you are going to downvote could you please tell me which part of my comment is factually incorrect? Genuinely curious. How do you think laws are enforced? This is not a controversial fact, it is admitted by both leftists and right-wing politicians, economists and philosophers. Thanks :) > This is great, salaries shouldn't be secret! Why? Do you realize that laws are enforced by the use of government force and sending cops with guns to your house if you don't comply? What this does is basically pointing guns at people and ordering them "tell me your salary or I will shoot you". How is that in any way a moral thing to do?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - enriquto 9y ago
      Just for the record, I actually upvoted you (after seeing so many downvotes) because you provided a reasonable argument. It is sad that you cannot often use colorful language on HN because people vote you down.
      - patrickaljord 9y ago
        Thanks! While my language may be colorful, I don't think I used any insults or shown aggressiveness in my comment.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
- Thlom 9y ago
  That's how it was in Norway previously. The newspapers used to get the top of the local list and publish across several pages when they were made available. When online news became popular in the early 2000s they just got the whole dataset and published a searchable version online. This was banned a few years ago, and search is only available on the government website where it will notify whoever you search for that you have searched for them ...
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    In other words, newspapers, in their hunger for clicks, ruined a working system...
- pimmen 9y ago
  Because there might be social stigma around your medical condition, the fact that you've ever been homeless, that you don't have custody over your children and aren't receiving benefits or any number of things. You earn your pay check, receiving one means that you're valued. Maybe not as valued as someone else, but valued none the less. Benefits are received because you need them, sometimes because you've been through hardships. I have no problem with finding people who game the system, but I don't think the public are the ones who should do that job.
  - kisstheblade 9y ago
    Well just publish a lump sum. Taxes paid: x €, benefits received: y €. Where's the problem with that? Medical costs could be excluded (medical care is practically "free" here ie. paid by taxes).
    - pimmen 9y ago
      I wasn't talking about medical costs, I'm talking about benefits received while you're sick. This article is about Norway, and just like in every other Scandinavian country, after a while the state pays for their medical leave. That's a benefit, wether or not the actual cost of treatment was paid by the state or not. The problem with doing that is, again, the social stigma. Why did you receive 3 times the normal average of benefits for a period? Were you a fuck up? It's comparable to the mug-shot websites in the US; if an employer sees you on that site, they don't care if you were ever indicted, what the crime was, if the officer was found to be acting incorrectly; you just had the bar raised for you, and this sucks if you were innocent because then there really is no reason. I can see the same thing happening if someone can see your unusual benefits, regardless of wether you deserved them or not.
  - lmm 9y ago
    There could easily be stigma about people who earn a lot of money too though, particularly if they're not in a visible traditional job.
    - devdad 9y ago
- e12e 9y ago
  As far as I know, you pay taxes on social benefits, so it would be listed (as part of the sum) of income/taxes in Norway.
- deanclatworthy 9y ago
  What's the "terminal" of which you speak? Last time I asked about this (years ago) there was an online service and you could pay about 10e to find out.
  - kisstheblade 9y ago
    https://www.mtv.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/artikkeli/nain-helppoa-on-selvittaa-kenen-tahansa-verotiedot-mtv-neuvoo-katevimmat-niksit/6144762 https://www.mtv.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/artikkeli/nain-helppoa-on...
m-i-l 9y ago
Not sure about publishing income and assets, but publishing everyone's tax bills could help stigmatise aggressive tax avoidance.
- sweettea 9y ago
  Or incentivize. A website and forum would swiftly spring up publishing the best-optimizing taxpayers/tax-avoiders, perhaps ranking by (normal tax rate for the taxpayers' income) / (actual tax rate). People would compete to get the top spot on the ranking, and 11.5 months of the year the forum would be striving to find clever hacks to optimize.
  - zdkl 9y ago
    Well if we assume users are malicious that sounds ripe for a waterhole attack, so please, go ahead! On the other hand if it becomes a standard place for tax-related information to the general public it could be a good thing.
  - ClassyJacket 9y ago
    This doesn't seem likely. Anyone who cares that much will already be paying an accountant to avoid as much tax as possible.
scottmcdot 9y ago
Does anyone have a link to the search tool?
- judofyr 9y ago
  This is the current search tool, but it requires a Norwegian national ID (SSN) to log in: http://www.skatteetaten.no/en/person/Tax-settlement/Search-in-the-tax-lists/ http://www.skatteetaten.no/en/person/Tax-settlement/Search-i... If you google "skattelister" (tax lists) you will find various other tools: - This one is based on the 2008 taxes and is therefore completely searchable on name and gives you income/assets/taxes + municipality/age: http://www.biip.no/default.aspx?section=skatt http://www.biip.no/default.aspx?section=skatt - This one is based on the latest 2015 taxes: https://www.dn.no/skattelister/ https://www.dn.no/skattelister/. This means that they've used the official tool to search for specific celebrities and published it (together with some general distributions/stats).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Roritharr 9y ago
I think in Germany a large part why Salaries are secret is because most people don't want to think about it. https://www.quora.com/Why-is-everything-so-cheap-in-Germany https://www.quora.com/Why-is-everything-so-cheap-in-Germany
- jraedisch 9y ago
  I cannot find anything supporting your argument under that link. Maybe add some quotes? Also Norwegians probably do not have to look up their colleagues salaries, if they do not want to. I would definitely like to know at least the general distribution.
  - Roritharr 9y ago
    It's just a guess that there is a connection between the difference of perceived wealth and actual wealth of a countries citizens and the secrecy around salaries. If you earn right the median income , but think the actual median is much higher, you tend to not want to talk about your income because you are of low status, compared to everyone else who you expect to earn more.
  - killbrad 9y ago
    Glassdoor?
  - chha 9y ago
    Many unions in Norway in the private sector (if not most) generate statistics based on information from their members regarding salary, education, experience and so on, so for me as a developer/sysop there really is no need to check what my colleagues are paid. I work at a place where everyone has a different background, so I don't expect the same pay for everyone. But I expect that I'm paid similar to others with the same responsibility, tasks, background, etc within the industry and geographical area.
- legulere 9y ago
  I think it's more common because employers succeeded in telling employees to not talk about how much they earn. I heard it several times that people got bonuses under the condition to net tell colleagues about it. This puts employees in a situation where also they can loose through wage transparency.
jamesblonde 9y ago
We have it in Sweden, too. I think you pay 50 kr (6 dollars) to look up somebody's declared income - anonymously. There's a website for this: www.kollainkomst.se (check incomes)
- Eyght 9y ago
  If someone makes a request for your personal income and tax information in Sweden, you'll always get a letter with the name of who requested your information and a copy of the information that was supplied to them.
  - jamesblonde 9y ago
    If a 3rd party requests on your behalf, though. Just asking...
  - lb1lf 9y ago
    Presumably that is the raison d'etre for third-party companies offering anonymous lookups (of what is essentially freely available information) for a fee - whoever gets looked up receives notification that Leeches-R-Us, Inc. looked up their details.
    - wingerlang 9y ago
      It says that the notice is only sent if the details were looked up by a private person. > Hotet resulterade i att branschen ingick ett avtal om att alltid skicka en kreditupplysningskopia om förfrågan beställts av en privatperson.
- deanclatworthy 9y ago
  Finland also. You can check people's tax rate and then quite easily make an accurate estimate of their salary based off that. I'm not aware of anywhere to look it up for free (offhand) but it's no more than 10e last time I heard.
audunw 9y ago
Back when the lists were completely open and could be searched on multiple different media sites without logging in, I would sometimes look up people out of curiosity. Since it was put behind a government 2-factor login page I've honestly never bothered. I think it's pretty cool that this information is open, but I'm not sure if it has any significant impact. I'm sure it's a nice tool for investigative journalism, but what else?
- mcraiha 9y ago
  You can see what kind of salaries people get in same kind of jobs.
- e12e 9y ago
  I think its fine that it was moved behind a secure login and rate limited - because there's other information that's useful for identity theft and/or stalking (date of birth and municipality - along with a history of re-locations - not at address level, but specific enough that it poses a great de-anonymizing vector for a (working) population of ~3(?) millon. A simple name+city lookup would normally be enough to look up date-of-birth). But now they've added a "shame"-filter of alerting who you look up -- which makes some sense, but IMNHO removes the democratizing effect a bit. Before, you could look up the salary of the person(s) interviewing you for a job, along with salaries for various people in the company (assuming a public listing of employees, which is normal). You can still do that of course, but I'm afraid too many will be "offended" by this way of using information that's public by law to reduce the information asymmetry. The flip side is that a potential employer can also see what you've earned the past few years. I don't think most people used it like this though - it's useful for checking what public figures earn/pay in taxes - and it's useful to do a rough sanity check to see if work place agreements on compensation are followed (there's no minimum wage in Norway, but unions are still strong) - and also to do a rough check for gender imbalance in salaries at a given workplace.
  - killbrad 9y ago
    The one thing I took away from your comment is that you are not humble in your opinion.
tudorconstantin 9y ago
Am I the only one who thinks it's my own business how much I earn as long as I don't do anything illegal? What's next, a database with all guys dick size?
- Roritharr 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure that someone is on GoDaddy at this moment registering dicksizedb.com
- pimmen 9y ago
  You've earned all that money, it's nothing to be ashamed of so I don't really see how that's making you more uncomfortable than everyone being able to look up your expensive sports car at the DMV. However, if you're running for office, I would be very interested in knowing how you made all that money (even if none of it was made illegally) since you'll be regulating businesses and what not.
  - logicallee 9y ago
    shame isn't the only thing. If everyone knows you deal with trading rare comic books between America and Japan, with no listed prices but a comission between private transactions which you intermediate, have no employees and do it all via a couple of low-key websites, then it is no big deal. They might assume you do a few per year or per month, but that it is hardly some huge market. If, however, the world learns that you made $37.2 million last year doing this, then this signal might be enough for your income to drop to $0 and for you never to make another penny again. (For example because it invites a transparent competitor who does list prices and who you can't or don't want to deal with; or invited eBay, who actually loses money entering this market with a huge splash. Or invited Christie's, the auctiom house, who had not been tracking this part of the market. etc etc.) In capitalist countries salaries can be clear signals for turnover, which could otherwise be private.
    - pimmen 9y ago
      Then, I don't know, don't give it to yourself in that way but rather re-invest in your company if it really is your turnover? Those poor business owners who are making so much money that they're attracting competition can't afford accountants?
andy_ppp 9y ago
Of course salaries shouldn't be secret - everything like this should be in the open and you should be able to talk directly to your boss about contributions to the company that you have made over and above those who are earning more than you. This also helps when in most societies women are paid substantially and illegally less than men for the same job. This prudish idea of not wanting to talk about money is not a good enough one to stop people from being able to value themselves against their peers. After an initial period of concern everyone would eventually stop worrying about this system as disparities were corrected and fairer wages were introduced. Is there a reason not to have open salary information?
- rimliu 9y ago
  > most societies women are paid substantially and illegally > less than men for the same job Source? Quite a bold claim about "most societies". And the danger of mixing up "women earn less" with "women are paid for the same job [and same amount of time spend doing it]".
  - andy_ppp 9y ago
    Okay, well let's take the BBC as a microcosm shall we? One of the most liberal places you can possibly work and overwhelmingly all the top jobs go to men (2/3 men) and men are paid more for similar value of work. Here's a link: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-40653383 http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-40653383 The idea you could possibly be arguing other organisations than the BBC are fairer is absurd - they are most likely far worse!
    - 10918239111 9y ago
      AND THE SALARIES ARE APPARENTLY KNOWN, DEBUNKING YOUR THESIS THAT SALARY DISCLOSURE LEADS TO FAIRER WAGES.
    - matthewmacleod 9y ago
      I would say that, while the BBC salary thing is obviously concerning, it’s also a bad example for the general case.
yread 9y ago
So, where is the graph of distribution of incomes?
- MattConfluence 9y ago
  The taxation-lookup site doesn't offer any aggregated data, however you can find some statistics at the national statistics bureau's website: https://ssb.no/en/inntekt-og-forbruk https://ssb.no/en/inntekt-og-forbruk (link to page in English)
sfRattan 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante ...specifically, 'the penal code of Jante...'
sundvor 9y ago
Ah Norway, home of the Teslas. I remember the tax lists were always public in Norway, however before the Internet became commonplace actual physical effort was required - you had to go to the city council to look through the books. The change to publish the lists online was creepy. I'm glad I left before my own numbers were made public (IIRC). In Australia the difference between the rich and the poor feels a lot less pronounced. It helps not to actually know your mates might earn 3x what you do. This is just this Norwegian expat's personal experience; YMMV. (Edit: I see from other comments here that the information has been ID-locked. That's a good thing, if but a bit late - after at least a decade fully open).
- Broken_Hippo 9y ago
  Slightly off the main topic: In Australia the difference between the rich and the poor feels a lot less pronounced. It helps not to actually know your mates might earn 3x what you do. Oddly, this is basically what I think of Norway after moving from the US.
partycoder 9y ago
Well, I assume this only considers base salary. But for some occupations commissions, bonuses, etc. can be a significant part of their paycheck.
- johannes1234321 9y ago
  It's about the taxed income.
- runarb 9y ago
  No, it is not your salary per say, but your taxable income that is available for everyone to see. All income, including base salary, bonuses, and perks are taxed the same and included in this number.
  - arpa 9y ago
    Just a tiny nitpick. It's per se, latin for "by itself", not per say. Just like should have is not should of.
zimablue 9y ago
Another problem with this is that it stigmatises (and in the long term will prevent) those with no wealth and a high income. I think it's madness but a more fair trade would at least be to also publish everyone's existing wealth. I make an ok income for the minute but am not going to inherit millions in property like most people I know. Wealth is a much bigger problem than income for society.
swombat 9y ago
My company, GrantTree, has completely transparent salaries since day 1, almost 7 years ago. We are about 35 people now. #ama
- smm2000 9y ago
  Do you pay on par with Google, etc? Do potential employees sees salaries before negotiations?
  - swombat 9y ago
    I'm not sure how to answer the first question... we pay good salaries, but we don't have primarily developers so I'm not sure how to compare us to google. Potential employees get walked through the system we used to come up with what we think their pay should be, and get to see what everyone else's pay is, as a prelude to a chat about what their pay should be. Most are happy to go with our number. Some need more for some reason, and we're flexible about this. We make the effort to be the first one to quote a number on the basis that typically, in salary negotiations, "the first person to name a number loses". So we deliberately lose upfront to create a situation of trust instead of an opaque, win/lose negotiation where each side is trying to squeeze the other. We haven't encountered a situation where the candidate behaved in a way we considered aggressive or dishonest after we opened the salary conversation in this way. Worth noting that the expected salary range is always advertised upfront with the job.
- ghthor 9y ago
  Have people left because of this? Was it a loss or a gain for the companies culture if these people left?
  - swombat 9y ago
    One person left because he wanted to be paid significantly more than his work was worth at the time (according to me, my cofounder, and the 5 people we put in charge of a "pay team" to resolve this). He left, and it was better for him - he took a year off, decided actually the problem was he wanted to be doing charitable work and the money was a way to make up for that gap. He's now working at a charity. I see it as a loss, but I'm not sure it was an avoidable loss. Nobody else left because of pay transparency. Before we got our feedback in order, some people left because of feedback about their work, which only came after a round of pay changes, which made it clear to them that they were not doing work that was valued by the company. In those cases it would have been much better for everyone if we had delivered that feedback much more quickly! We're better at this now.
harry8 9y ago
Why keep this stuff secret? Because none of it is fair and we all know it. None of it can be. "We needed person X in January and couldn't wait until march so we promised them more money to come accross." So you should piss off everyone else by rubbing it in their face that X was pretty lucky on timing? Or give everyone a raise the company can't afford? Or force person Y to have a horrible conversation with their spouse who cares more about money than Y does because they now know X gets more? Or have Z's pyschotic parent hassling them because they want a cut of money they didn't know was there until publication. You can imagine hundreds of other situation like this that are horrible consequences that you 100% know will happen to someone. Privacy is quite unfashionable nowadays. The fashionable idea that nobody else should get it because it doesn't suit you is pretty ugly. It used to be quite an admirable thing to be wealthy and have nobody know you were.
- pcmaffey 9y ago
  Transparency always shows the ugly unfair side of things when the sheets are first lifted... That's the whole point. People adjust and systems adjust, and we figure out how to better work together. Salaries are a reflection of the value you're supposedly contributing to society. Isn't that on principle public?
  - baraah 9y ago
    So you shouldn't be allowed to anonymously contribute to society? Does this include whistle blowers?
    - almost_usual 9y ago
      Begs the question of whether whistle blowers would be needed if there was more transparency, right?
      - drdaeman 9y ago
        Only if there will be a complete and enforced transparency, so no one would be able to do anything with secrecy. Sort of "The Circle" setting.
wolco 9y ago
A system like this encourages others to compare salaries and make judgements about oneself related to how well one is doing compared to someone else. This creates unhappyness because some feel they work harder and shouldn't be paid a quarter less. The person getting the extra amount feels they are more successful than there peers. All this does is distract you from the fact that both of you are making only a few dollars above minimum wage. If you only look at total pay in relation to your needs you will accept and be proud of your wage. I have seen people who love there job find out someone they feel does not measure up to them make more money. This causes them to start hating the role they once loved and in some cases they left for the same salary elsewhere.
- cwingrav 9y ago
  Which hurts the original company such that they start making better salary decisions. Transparency seems like a good thing here but it does create chaos during periods of correction.
- rickmode 9y ago
  Salary comparisons happen anyway, with the same effect, although you typically have to do it in secret because in many company's, sharing salary information is against company policy. In my anecdotal experience, the angst doesn't last long, unless you are actually severely underpaid. And that's a problem regardless of salary disclosure. In my opinion, I like the idea of open salary information because I suck at negotiating, and this would help. Why penalize people that haven't specialized in salesmanship? I became a developer to concentrate on solving problems, not trying to outwit and out-politic my co-workers, managers, and potential hiring managers.
- bayonetz 9y ago
  You are describing one possible reaction and the implication is that people should try to remain blissfully ignorant to avoid having to experience this type of envy or reduced self-esteem. There are people that have this reaction and do try to avoid it all costs but it's certainly not the only way. I, for one, relish this kind of gritty reality feedback from the world and try to use it to guide my choices. If you get to peek at salaries and find they are unfair, well now you can feel empowered to negotiate from a position where you can revoke an employer's BS of "we need to keep everyone's salary on an even (read: artificially capped) playing field and therefore we can't go making exceptions for you". On the other hand, sometimes you peek and are presently surprised that you landed somewhere actually walking the meritocratic walk. Does it sting to see that some bozo makes more than you? Of course. But now you know and can take steps to rectify the situation. I'm definitely biased toward the growth mindset school of things; I'd say "peeking" is overall net positive in most cases, whether we are talking salaries or any other sensitive information. Now that I think about it, It would be awesome to see everyone's performance reviews. Who's getting a free a pass and who's getting a raw deal and such.
marenkay 9y ago
This is one of the things I want to see in the rest of Europe too. Still hope that we'll see a EU wide tax and commerce union leading into a unified system that includes the best from every EU member. Also liking the sentiment that people want to have some kind of confirmation that everyone pays a similar level of taxes :-)
- josmar 9y ago
  Would it not be more likely that we Scandinavians would have to use the mainstream system? I'm not Norwegian, but my nation Sweden does this similarly. If we accept giving our internal revenue services to the EU, I very much doubt that we will be able to keep this sort of thing, such as the principle of things being public (sv: offentlighetsprincipen). For reasons like this (giving up what is unique about our culture for the mainstream continental one) I can't help but be sceptic of further involvement with European political unity, and am anticipating that Brits of 10 years from now will be satisfied with their decision to leave.
anoplus 9y ago
Transparency is enormous factor in the quality of life of all of us, and I think real transparency is not about public information, but public knowledge.
Pica_soO 9y ago
This definitely blocks divide and conquer from working for employers.
FlashGit 9y ago
Funny how some people stopped searching once you could no longer do it anonymously.
digi_owl 9y ago
Not so much salaries, as declared gross incomes and wealth. Salaries are dealt with via bi-yearly negotiations between unions and business representatives. Note btw that there is no minimum wage legislation in Norway. Instead the agreement formed during negotiations apply not just to union members but to the business sector as a whole.
- Thlom 9y ago
  It's not true that tariffs apply to everyone. The only law that apply to everyone is is Arbeidsmiljøloven. Some tariffs are generalised and is a de-facto minimum wage in that sector.
valar_m 9y ago
>> "When you pay that much you have to know that everyone else is doing it, and you have to know that the money goes to something reasonable," he says. That's an interesting justification. It's like the Norwegian government wants people to focus on making sure their neighbors are getting just as hosed as they are instead of asking why they have to pay a 40% income tax. Also, how does making everyone's salary public prove to taxpayers that their money is going to something reasonable? That doesn't follow at all.
- TulliusCicero 9y ago
  As opposed to those other developed countries that manage to give high quality of life to almost everyone without high taxes, such as
  - mahyarm 9y ago
    Switzerland!
- Godel_unicode 9y ago
  This is a nudge, they're using the power of social norms. It's ok that my tax bill is this high, because that's just how it is. The default assumption is that the money is going to something good because countries like Norway have high social trust.
- todd8 9y ago
  Does Norway also have a VAT? The top marginal rate on wages in California is 51.9% according to taxfoundation.org [1] [1] https://taxfoundation.org/high-income-taxpayers-could-face-top-marginal-tax-rate-over-50-percent-tax-season/ https://taxfoundation.org/high-income-taxpayers-could-face-t...
  - Thlom 9y ago
    Yes, generally 25%, 15% for food stuff and 10% for cultural stuff. Income is taxed with 25% up to 164K NOK (about 20K USD), maximum income tax is 39,25% for everyone earning more than about 950K NOK (about 119K USD). But there's lots of deductions, so it's not too bad.
dmichulke 9y ago
A question for all the people who use the word "fair": Do you mean fair as paid - by productivity, - by necessity, - paid equally, or - something else?
beagle3 9y ago
I think janteloven also plays a part here, although I am not sure which part.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
marcoperaza 9y ago
The result of this and other policies in Scandinavia is that everyone makes just about the same amount of money in a given line of work. Raises are based almost exclusively on age and seniority, not on performance. What a depressing and demotivating system.
err4nt 9y ago
There seem to be a lot of commenters in favour of open salaries here - how does this work for self-employed people? If I've been freelancing and working my tail off do you also believe I ought to be publicly disclosing that, or is it limited to employees of companies?
- lordnacho 9y ago
  If you're self-employed, you still have a tax return. If you make a company to hold things in, it has a tax return.
Lazy_Killer 9y ago
I find that entire premise a bit horrifying tbh, although clearly the DWP or whoever know who i am and what I earn and what I owe in taxes etc. I dunno if I'd like that public info tho, or any of that like muh transactions or income. That's private, right?
k__ 9y ago
This doesn't change much, I guess. I mean, if you see marked rate for a JavaScript dev is too low, just don't sell yourself as one. Be a "mobile app dev" or a "solution engineer" etc. pp. In the end you do the same work and get paid more, because people stop judging you by skill A bit skill B.
xiaoma 9y ago
This is amazing for small advertisers. Anyone's salary can be found online, for free, and it's easy to target high earners with ads or even direct sales teams. It's not so great for the high earners, though...
known 9y ago
Possible due to social mobility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Great_Gatsby_Curve.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Great_Gatsby_Curve.pn...

253 points by tpatke 9y ago

Wow, surprised I'd never heard of this.

We have the same thing in Finland. Only you can't access the info easily online, you have to go to the tax office and use their terminal. But there you can stalk your neighbors and friends anonymously. Although newspapers publish lists of all people earning 150k/year and make a big thing about the income of celebrities. What I haven't understood is if tax records are public why aren't social security payments etc. also public? So you could see who possibly "games" the system in benefits? I mean if the point of public tax data is to be "open" (=have everybody snitching for the government).

enriquto 9y ago
This is great, salaries shouldn't be secret! Accessing the info in a terminal makes sense. However, why is it anonymous? I would like to know, also, who has been reading my info, and when.
- kisstheblade 9y ago
  So that you can snitch (anonymously, on the net, there is a website for this). https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/contact-us/efil/reporting-suspected-tax-evasion/ https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/contact-us/efil/reporting-su... But agreed, the model in norway is better, so that you can see who has accessed your info.
- patrickaljord 9y ago
  Edit: if you are going to downvote could you please tell me which part of my comment is factually incorrect? Genuinely curious. How do you think laws are enforced? This is not a controversial fact, it is admitted by both leftists and right-wing politicians, economists and philosophers. Thanks :) > This is great, salaries shouldn't be secret! Why? Do you realize that laws are enforced by the use of government force and sending cops with guns to your house if you don't comply? What this does is basically pointing guns at people and ordering them "tell me your salary or I will shoot you". How is that in any way a moral thing to do?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - enriquto 9y ago
    Just for the record, I actually upvoted you (after seeing so many downvotes) because you provided a reasonable argument. It is sad that you cannot often use colorful language on HN because people vote you down.
    - patrickaljord 9y ago
      Thanks! While my language may be colorful, I don't think I used any insults or shown aggressiveness in my comment.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
Thlom 9y ago
That's how it was in Norway previously. The newspapers used to get the top of the local list and publish across several pages when they were made available. When online news became popular in the early 2000s they just got the whole dataset and published a searchable version online. This was banned a few years ago, and search is only available on the government website where it will notify whoever you search for that you have searched for them ...
- digi_owl 9y ago
  In other words, newspapers, in their hunger for clicks, ruined a working system...
pimmen 9y ago
Because there might be social stigma around your medical condition, the fact that you've ever been homeless, that you don't have custody over your children and aren't receiving benefits or any number of things. You earn your pay check, receiving one means that you're valued. Maybe not as valued as someone else, but valued none the less. Benefits are received because you need them, sometimes because you've been through hardships. I have no problem with finding people who game the system, but I don't think the public are the ones who should do that job.
- kisstheblade 9y ago
  Well just publish a lump sum. Taxes paid: x €, benefits received: y €. Where's the problem with that? Medical costs could be excluded (medical care is practically "free" here ie. paid by taxes).
  - pimmen 9y ago
    I wasn't talking about medical costs, I'm talking about benefits received while you're sick. This article is about Norway, and just like in every other Scandinavian country, after a while the state pays for their medical leave. That's a benefit, wether or not the actual cost of treatment was paid by the state or not. The problem with doing that is, again, the social stigma. Why did you receive 3 times the normal average of benefits for a period? Were you a fuck up? It's comparable to the mug-shot websites in the US; if an employer sees you on that site, they don't care if you were ever indicted, what the crime was, if the officer was found to be acting incorrectly; you just had the bar raised for you, and this sucks if you were innocent because then there really is no reason. I can see the same thing happening if someone can see your unusual benefits, regardless of wether you deserved them or not.
- lmm 9y ago
  There could easily be stigma about people who earn a lot of money too though, particularly if they're not in a visible traditional job.
  - devdad 9y ago
e12e 9y ago
As far as I know, you pay taxes on social benefits, so it would be listed (as part of the sum) of income/taxes in Norway.
deanclatworthy 9y ago
What's the "terminal" of which you speak? Last time I asked about this (years ago) there was an online service and you could pay about 10e to find out.
- kisstheblade 9y ago
  https://www.mtv.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/artikkeli/nain-helppoa-on-selvittaa-kenen-tahansa-verotiedot-mtv-neuvoo-katevimmat-niksit/6144762 https://www.mtv.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/artikkeli/nain-helppoa-on...

m-i-l 9y ago

Not sure about publishing income and assets, but publishing everyone's tax bills could help stigmatise aggressive tax avoidance.

sweettea 9y ago
Or incentivize. A website and forum would swiftly spring up publishing the best-optimizing taxpayers/tax-avoiders, perhaps ranking by (normal tax rate for the taxpayers' income) / (actual tax rate). People would compete to get the top spot on the ranking, and 11.5 months of the year the forum would be striving to find clever hacks to optimize.
- zdkl 9y ago
  Well if we assume users are malicious that sounds ripe for a waterhole attack, so please, go ahead! On the other hand if it becomes a standard place for tax-related information to the general public it could be a good thing.
- ClassyJacket 9y ago
  This doesn't seem likely. Anyone who cares that much will already be paying an accountant to avoid as much tax as possible.

scottmcdot 9y ago

Does anyone have a link to the search tool?

judofyr 9y ago
This is the current search tool, but it requires a Norwegian national ID (SSN) to log in: http://www.skatteetaten.no/en/person/Tax-settlement/Search-in-the-tax-lists/ http://www.skatteetaten.no/en/person/Tax-settlement/Search-i... If you google "skattelister" (tax lists) you will find various other tools: - This one is based on the 2008 taxes and is therefore completely searchable on name and gives you income/assets/taxes + municipality/age: http://www.biip.no/default.aspx?section=skatt http://www.biip.no/default.aspx?section=skatt - This one is based on the latest 2015 taxes: https://www.dn.no/skattelister/ https://www.dn.no/skattelister/. This means that they've used the official tool to search for specific celebrities and published it (together with some general distributions/stats).
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

Roritharr 9y ago

I think in Germany a large part why Salaries are secret is because most people don't want to think about it. https://www.quora.com/Why-is-everything-so-cheap-in-Germany https://www.quora.com/Why-is-everything-so-cheap-in-Germany

jraedisch 9y ago
I cannot find anything supporting your argument under that link. Maybe add some quotes? Also Norwegians probably do not have to look up their colleagues salaries, if they do not want to. I would definitely like to know at least the general distribution.
- Roritharr 9y ago
  It's just a guess that there is a connection between the difference of perceived wealth and actual wealth of a countries citizens and the secrecy around salaries. If you earn right the median income , but think the actual median is much higher, you tend to not want to talk about your income because you are of low status, compared to everyone else who you expect to earn more.
- killbrad 9y ago
  Glassdoor?
- chha 9y ago
  Many unions in Norway in the private sector (if not most) generate statistics based on information from their members regarding salary, education, experience and so on, so for me as a developer/sysop there really is no need to check what my colleagues are paid. I work at a place where everyone has a different background, so I don't expect the same pay for everyone. But I expect that I'm paid similar to others with the same responsibility, tasks, background, etc within the industry and geographical area.
legulere 9y ago
I think it's more common because employers succeeded in telling employees to not talk about how much they earn. I heard it several times that people got bonuses under the condition to net tell colleagues about it. This puts employees in a situation where also they can loose through wage transparency.

jamesblonde 9y ago

We have it in Sweden, too. I think you pay 50 kr (6 dollars) to look up somebody's declared income - anonymously. There's a website for this: www.kollainkomst.se (check incomes)

Eyght 9y ago
If someone makes a request for your personal income and tax information in Sweden, you'll always get a letter with the name of who requested your information and a copy of the information that was supplied to them.
- jamesblonde 9y ago
  If a 3rd party requests on your behalf, though. Just asking...
- lb1lf 9y ago
  Presumably that is the raison d'etre for third-party companies offering anonymous lookups (of what is essentially freely available information) for a fee - whoever gets looked up receives notification that Leeches-R-Us, Inc. looked up their details.
  - wingerlang 9y ago
    It says that the notice is only sent if the details were looked up by a private person. > Hotet resulterade i att branschen ingick ett avtal om att alltid skicka en kreditupplysningskopia om förfrågan beställts av en privatperson.
deanclatworthy 9y ago
Finland also. You can check people's tax rate and then quite easily make an accurate estimate of their salary based off that. I'm not aware of anywhere to look it up for free (offhand) but it's no more than 10e last time I heard.

audunw 9y ago

Back when the lists were completely open and could be searched on multiple different media sites without logging in, I would sometimes look up people out of curiosity. Since it was put behind a government 2-factor login page I've honestly never bothered. I think it's pretty cool that this information is open, but I'm not sure if it has any significant impact. I'm sure it's a nice tool for investigative journalism, but what else?

mcraiha 9y ago
You can see what kind of salaries people get in same kind of jobs.
e12e 9y ago
I think its fine that it was moved behind a secure login and rate limited - because there's other information that's useful for identity theft and/or stalking (date of birth and municipality - along with a history of re-locations - not at address level, but specific enough that it poses a great de-anonymizing vector for a (working) population of ~3(?) millon. A simple name+city lookup would normally be enough to look up date-of-birth). But now they've added a "shame"-filter of alerting who you look up -- which makes some sense, but IMNHO removes the democratizing effect a bit. Before, you could look up the salary of the person(s) interviewing you for a job, along with salaries for various people in the company (assuming a public listing of employees, which is normal). You can still do that of course, but I'm afraid too many will be "offended" by this way of using information that's public by law to reduce the information asymmetry. The flip side is that a potential employer can also see what you've earned the past few years. I don't think most people used it like this though - it's useful for checking what public figures earn/pay in taxes - and it's useful to do a rough sanity check to see if work place agreements on compensation are followed (there's no minimum wage in Norway, but unions are still strong) - and also to do a rough check for gender imbalance in salaries at a given workplace.
- killbrad 9y ago
  The one thing I took away from your comment is that you are not humble in your opinion.

tudorconstantin 9y ago

Am I the only one who thinks it's my own business how much I earn as long as I don't do anything illegal? What's next, a database with all guys dick size?

Roritharr 9y ago
I'm pretty sure that someone is on GoDaddy at this moment registering dicksizedb.com
pimmen 9y ago
You've earned all that money, it's nothing to be ashamed of so I don't really see how that's making you more uncomfortable than everyone being able to look up your expensive sports car at the DMV. However, if you're running for office, I would be very interested in knowing how you made all that money (even if none of it was made illegally) since you'll be regulating businesses and what not.
- logicallee 9y ago
  shame isn't the only thing. If everyone knows you deal with trading rare comic books between America and Japan, with no listed prices but a comission between private transactions which you intermediate, have no employees and do it all via a couple of low-key websites, then it is no big deal. They might assume you do a few per year or per month, but that it is hardly some huge market. If, however, the world learns that you made $37.2 million last year doing this, then this signal might be enough for your income to drop to $0 and for you never to make another penny again. (For example because it invites a transparent competitor who does list prices and who you can't or don't want to deal with; or invited eBay, who actually loses money entering this market with a huge splash. Or invited Christie's, the auctiom house, who had not been tracking this part of the market. etc etc.) In capitalist countries salaries can be clear signals for turnover, which could otherwise be private.
  - pimmen 9y ago
    Then, I don't know, don't give it to yourself in that way but rather re-invest in your company if it really is your turnover? Those poor business owners who are making so much money that they're attracting competition can't afford accountants?

andy_ppp 9y ago

Of course salaries shouldn't be secret - everything like this should be in the open and you should be able to talk directly to your boss about contributions to the company that you have made over and above those who are earning more than you. This also helps when in most societies women are paid substantially and illegally less than men for the same job. This prudish idea of not wanting to talk about money is not a good enough one to stop people from being able to value themselves against their peers. After an initial period of concern everyone would eventually stop worrying about this system as disparities were corrected and fairer wages were introduced. Is there a reason not to have open salary information?

rimliu 9y ago
> most societies women are paid substantially and illegally > less than men for the same job Source? Quite a bold claim about "most societies". And the danger of mixing up "women earn less" with "women are paid for the same job [and same amount of time spend doing it]".
- andy_ppp 9y ago
  Okay, well let's take the BBC as a microcosm shall we? One of the most liberal places you can possibly work and overwhelmingly all the top jobs go to men (2/3 men) and men are paid more for similar value of work. Here's a link: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-40653383 http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-40653383 The idea you could possibly be arguing other organisations than the BBC are fairer is absurd - they are most likely far worse!
  - 10918239111 9y ago
    AND THE SALARIES ARE APPARENTLY KNOWN, DEBUNKING YOUR THESIS THAT SALARY DISCLOSURE LEADS TO FAIRER WAGES.
  - matthewmacleod 9y ago
    I would say that, while the BBC salary thing is obviously concerning, it’s also a bad example for the general case.

yread 9y ago

So, where is the graph of distribution of incomes?

MattConfluence 9y ago
The taxation-lookup site doesn't offer any aggregated data, however you can find some statistics at the national statistics bureau's website: https://ssb.no/en/inntekt-og-forbruk https://ssb.no/en/inntekt-og-forbruk (link to page in English)

sfRattan 9y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante ...specifically, 'the penal code of Jante...'

sundvor 9y ago

Ah Norway, home of the Teslas. I remember the tax lists were always public in Norway, however before the Internet became commonplace actual physical effort was required - you had to go to the city council to look through the books. The change to publish the lists online was creepy. I'm glad I left before my own numbers were made public (IIRC). In Australia the difference between the rich and the poor feels a lot less pronounced. It helps not to actually know your mates might earn 3x what you do. This is just this Norwegian expat's personal experience; YMMV. (Edit: I see from other comments here that the information has been ID-locked. That's a good thing, if but a bit late - after at least a decade fully open).

Broken_Hippo 9y ago
Slightly off the main topic: In Australia the difference between the rich and the poor feels a lot less pronounced. It helps not to actually know your mates might earn 3x what you do. Oddly, this is basically what I think of Norway after moving from the US.

partycoder 9y ago

Well, I assume this only considers base salary. But for some occupations commissions, bonuses, etc. can be a significant part of their paycheck.

johannes1234321 9y ago
It's about the taxed income.
runarb 9y ago
No, it is not your salary per say, but your taxable income that is available for everyone to see. All income, including base salary, bonuses, and perks are taxed the same and included in this number.
- arpa 9y ago
  Just a tiny nitpick. It's per se, latin for "by itself", not per say. Just like should have is not should of.

zimablue 9y ago

Another problem with this is that it stigmatises (and in the long term will prevent) those with no wealth and a high income. I think it's madness but a more fair trade would at least be to also publish everyone's existing wealth. I make an ok income for the minute but am not going to inherit millions in property like most people I know. Wealth is a much bigger problem than income for society.

swombat 9y ago

My company, GrantTree, has completely transparent salaries since day 1, almost 7 years ago. We are about 35 people now. #ama

smm2000 9y ago
Do you pay on par with Google, etc? Do potential employees sees salaries before negotiations?
- swombat 9y ago
  I'm not sure how to answer the first question... we pay good salaries, but we don't have primarily developers so I'm not sure how to compare us to google. Potential employees get walked through the system we used to come up with what we think their pay should be, and get to see what everyone else's pay is, as a prelude to a chat about what their pay should be. Most are happy to go with our number. Some need more for some reason, and we're flexible about this. We make the effort to be the first one to quote a number on the basis that typically, in salary negotiations, "the first person to name a number loses". So we deliberately lose upfront to create a situation of trust instead of an opaque, win/lose negotiation where each side is trying to squeeze the other. We haven't encountered a situation where the candidate behaved in a way we considered aggressive or dishonest after we opened the salary conversation in this way. Worth noting that the expected salary range is always advertised upfront with the job.
ghthor 9y ago
Have people left because of this? Was it a loss or a gain for the companies culture if these people left?
- swombat 9y ago
  One person left because he wanted to be paid significantly more than his work was worth at the time (according to me, my cofounder, and the 5 people we put in charge of a "pay team" to resolve this). He left, and it was better for him - he took a year off, decided actually the problem was he wanted to be doing charitable work and the money was a way to make up for that gap. He's now working at a charity. I see it as a loss, but I'm not sure it was an avoidable loss. Nobody else left because of pay transparency. Before we got our feedback in order, some people left because of feedback about their work, which only came after a round of pay changes, which made it clear to them that they were not doing work that was valued by the company. In those cases it would have been much better for everyone if we had delivered that feedback much more quickly! We're better at this now.

harry8 9y ago

Why keep this stuff secret? Because none of it is fair and we all know it. None of it can be. "We needed person X in January and couldn't wait until march so we promised them more money to come accross." So you should piss off everyone else by rubbing it in their face that X was pretty lucky on timing? Or give everyone a raise the company can't afford? Or force person Y to have a horrible conversation with their spouse who cares more about money than Y does because they now know X gets more? Or have Z's pyschotic parent hassling them because they want a cut of money they didn't know was there until publication. You can imagine hundreds of other situation like this that are horrible consequences that you 100% know will happen to someone. Privacy is quite unfashionable nowadays. The fashionable idea that nobody else should get it because it doesn't suit you is pretty ugly. It used to be quite an admirable thing to be wealthy and have nobody know you were.

pcmaffey 9y ago
Transparency always shows the ugly unfair side of things when the sheets are first lifted... That's the whole point. People adjust and systems adjust, and we figure out how to better work together. Salaries are a reflection of the value you're supposedly contributing to society. Isn't that on principle public?
- baraah 9y ago
  So you shouldn't be allowed to anonymously contribute to society? Does this include whistle blowers?
  - almost_usual 9y ago
    Begs the question of whether whistle blowers would be needed if there was more transparency, right?
    - drdaeman 9y ago
      Only if there will be a complete and enforced transparency, so no one would be able to do anything with secrecy. Sort of "The Circle" setting.

wolco 9y ago

A system like this encourages others to compare salaries and make judgements about oneself related to how well one is doing compared to someone else. This creates unhappyness because some feel they work harder and shouldn't be paid a quarter less. The person getting the extra amount feels they are more successful than there peers. All this does is distract you from the fact that both of you are making only a few dollars above minimum wage. If you only look at total pay in relation to your needs you will accept and be proud of your wage. I have seen people who love there job find out someone they feel does not measure up to them make more money. This causes them to start hating the role they once loved and in some cases they left for the same salary elsewhere.

cwingrav 9y ago
Which hurts the original company such that they start making better salary decisions. Transparency seems like a good thing here but it does create chaos during periods of correction.
rickmode 9y ago
Salary comparisons happen anyway, with the same effect, although you typically have to do it in secret because in many company's, sharing salary information is against company policy. In my anecdotal experience, the angst doesn't last long, unless you are actually severely underpaid. And that's a problem regardless of salary disclosure. In my opinion, I like the idea of open salary information because I suck at negotiating, and this would help. Why penalize people that haven't specialized in salesmanship? I became a developer to concentrate on solving problems, not trying to outwit and out-politic my co-workers, managers, and potential hiring managers.
bayonetz 9y ago
You are describing one possible reaction and the implication is that people should try to remain blissfully ignorant to avoid having to experience this type of envy or reduced self-esteem. There are people that have this reaction and do try to avoid it all costs but it's certainly not the only way. I, for one, relish this kind of gritty reality feedback from the world and try to use it to guide my choices. If you get to peek at salaries and find they are unfair, well now you can feel empowered to negotiate from a position where you can revoke an employer's BS of "we need to keep everyone's salary on an even (read: artificially capped) playing field and therefore we can't go making exceptions for you". On the other hand, sometimes you peek and are presently surprised that you landed somewhere actually walking the meritocratic walk. Does it sting to see that some bozo makes more than you? Of course. But now you know and can take steps to rectify the situation. I'm definitely biased toward the growth mindset school of things; I'd say "peeking" is overall net positive in most cases, whether we are talking salaries or any other sensitive information. Now that I think about it, It would be awesome to see everyone's performance reviews. Who's getting a free a pass and who's getting a raw deal and such.

marenkay 9y ago

This is one of the things I want to see in the rest of Europe too. Still hope that we'll see a EU wide tax and commerce union leading into a unified system that includes the best from every EU member. Also liking the sentiment that people want to have some kind of confirmation that everyone pays a similar level of taxes :-)

josmar 9y ago
Would it not be more likely that we Scandinavians would have to use the mainstream system? I'm not Norwegian, but my nation Sweden does this similarly. If we accept giving our internal revenue services to the EU, I very much doubt that we will be able to keep this sort of thing, such as the principle of things being public (sv: offentlighetsprincipen). For reasons like this (giving up what is unique about our culture for the mainstream continental one) I can't help but be sceptic of further involvement with European political unity, and am anticipating that Brits of 10 years from now will be satisfied with their decision to leave.

anoplus 9y ago

Transparency is enormous factor in the quality of life of all of us, and I think real transparency is not about public information, but public knowledge.

Pica_soO 9y ago

This definitely blocks divide and conquer from working for employers.

FlashGit 9y ago

Funny how some people stopped searching once you could no longer do it anonymously.

digi_owl 9y ago

Not so much salaries, as declared gross incomes and wealth. Salaries are dealt with via bi-yearly negotiations between unions and business representatives. Note btw that there is no minimum wage legislation in Norway. Instead the agreement formed during negotiations apply not just to union members but to the business sector as a whole.

Thlom 9y ago
It's not true that tariffs apply to everyone. The only law that apply to everyone is is Arbeidsmiljøloven. Some tariffs are generalised and is a de-facto minimum wage in that sector.

valar_m 9y ago

>> "When you pay that much you have to know that everyone else is doing it, and you have to know that the money goes to something reasonable," he says. That's an interesting justification. It's like the Norwegian government wants people to focus on making sure their neighbors are getting just as hosed as they are instead of asking why they have to pay a 40% income tax. Also, how does making everyone's salary public prove to taxpayers that their money is going to something reasonable? That doesn't follow at all.

TulliusCicero 9y ago
As opposed to those other developed countries that manage to give high quality of life to almost everyone without high taxes, such as
- mahyarm 9y ago
  Switzerland!
Godel_unicode 9y ago
This is a nudge, they're using the power of social norms. It's ok that my tax bill is this high, because that's just how it is. The default assumption is that the money is going to something good because countries like Norway have high social trust.
todd8 9y ago
Does Norway also have a VAT? The top marginal rate on wages in California is 51.9% according to taxfoundation.org [1] [1] https://taxfoundation.org/high-income-taxpayers-could-face-top-marginal-tax-rate-over-50-percent-tax-season/ https://taxfoundation.org/high-income-taxpayers-could-face-t...
- Thlom 9y ago
  Yes, generally 25%, 15% for food stuff and 10% for cultural stuff. Income is taxed with 25% up to 164K NOK (about 20K USD), maximum income tax is 39,25% for everyone earning more than about 950K NOK (about 119K USD). But there's lots of deductions, so it's not too bad.

dmichulke 9y ago

A question for all the people who use the word "fair": Do you mean fair as paid - by productivity, - by necessity, - paid equally, or - something else?

beagle3 9y ago

I think janteloven also plays a part here, although I am not sure which part.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

marcoperaza 9y ago

The result of this and other policies in Scandinavia is that everyone makes just about the same amount of money in a given line of work. Raises are based almost exclusively on age and seniority, not on performance. What a depressing and demotivating system.

err4nt 9y ago

There seem to be a lot of commenters in favour of open salaries here - how does this work for self-employed people? If I've been freelancing and working my tail off do you also believe I ought to be publicly disclosing that, or is it limited to employees of companies?

lordnacho 9y ago
If you're self-employed, you still have a tax return. If you make a company to hold things in, it has a tax return.

Lazy_Killer 9y ago

I find that entire premise a bit horrifying tbh, although clearly the DWP or whoever know who i am and what I earn and what I owe in taxes etc. I dunno if I'd like that public info tho, or any of that like muh transactions or income. That's private, right?

k__ 9y ago

This doesn't change much, I guess. I mean, if you see marked rate for a JavaScript dev is too low, just don't sell yourself as one. Be a "mobile app dev" or a "solution engineer" etc. pp. In the end you do the same work and get paid more, because people stop judging you by skill A bit skill B.

xiaoma 9y ago

This is amazing for small advertisers. Anyone's salary can be found online, for free, and it's easy to target high earners with ads or even direct sales teams. It's not so great for the high earners, though...

known 9y ago

Possible due to social mobility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Great_Gatsby_Curve.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Great_Gatsby_Curve.pn...