Spy Where? Resources and Methods for Pay Reconnaissance

Gloria Steinam agrees with me. And so does Marci Alboher, who blogs at the NYT. Do I get a cookie now?

Cookie aside, it appears that the three of us have all opined in favor of more salary transparency as a means to fight pay discrimination. But just how, precisely, do we do that? Alboher passes on two recommendations from Penelope Trunk, who blogs on career development, to check Payscale.com and Salary.com. In the legal field, sites like Greedy Associates allow law firm associates to seek and share that information with as much or as little detail as they want to disclose. For government employees, that information should be publicly available through state or federal freedom of information laws. You can either request it yourself from the appropriate agency or find someone who has already compiled that information as many newspapers do.

Alboher, who says her income streams aren't easy to categorize, flat out asks people who do similar work what they get paid. How do you like them ovaries? You, too, can go the direct route, even if your employer doesn't want you to--the National Labor Relations Act guarantees employees, even nonunionized ones, the right to discuss "wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment" for their "mutual aid or protection." Employers don't like it, and they can prohibit those discussions from happening during work hours or on the job site, but they can't legally retaliate against employees for sharing salary information so long as it is shared within those parameters. That doesn't mean they might not try, so use discretion and if you take your findings to your boss, be cautious about disclosing the source of your information. But you do have every right to have these conversations.

This post was featured in the 162nd Carnival of Personal Finance.

Go Over Here Now

I'd like to point y'all toward two very interesting comment-based discussions going on elsewhere on the internet: Feministe guest blogger Habladora takes on the work/family pressure cooker. At the same site Allison Martell takes on the pay gap. Dang, Feministe has some good guest bloggers this summer. Jill should take the bar exam more often!

The Good News, The Bad News, And The Funny News

The good news is that I got the job. The bad news is that my new paycheck will be 65% of my current one. This is actually a little better than I first feared, because I was bracing for a 50% paycut. The funny news is that my monthly takehome pay will actually be about the same as in my current job.

How does a 35% reduction become no loss at all? It's not fuzzy math, I promise. Right now, I max out my 401(k) and save just under $2,000 a month. Not counting these two deductions, which I never see or touch for living expenses, my annual after-tax income is about $49,000. In my new job I am not eligible to contribute to a 401(k), and I will not be saving any of my salary--Shiner and I plan to live off my salary and save his after we get married. Ta da! Annual income of $48,270--that's not counting the $5,000 I'll put toward a Roth IRA. And just like that, the pay cut disappears.

Well, not really. My retirement savings will feel the hit. Our savings won't grow as fast as they could if I weren't seizing this professional opportunity. But it makes me more comfortable with the pay cut to know that it won't affect our standard of living any more than we want it too, and I won't feel like a mooch like I was afraid I would.