Salary Transparency: A Blessing or a Disaster?

Growing up, I always dreamed of when I will be an adult and finally start working do I could have my own money to spend. I mean, we all dreamt of what we would our first paychecks for but honestly, nothing prepared us for the reality of those paychecks. There are days when you really don’t know where all of that money went. Sadly, that’s what adulthood looks like for most people until they’re able to get their feet and find a way around their earnings.

Speaking of earnings, most of us in the working class are making money from the work we do. At the end of every month, we expect to receive our pay which is a testament to our hard work all month. For some , it’s not much but manageable while others receive more than enough. For as long as I’ve known, your pay depends on your qualifications and your position at the work place. You don’t expect an intern to receive the same pay as the managing director, things don’t work that way.

When it comes to how much people earn at work, what I know is that most people don’t know how much others they work with earn but what they know is probably an estimate of how much everyone earns. This I would like to believe is the same in most institutions. There’s no sheet with everyone’s payslip pasted on it for the whole company to find out. But when it comes to the medical field, how much workers earn is more of common knowledge. Everyone knows how much house officers, doctors or even physician assistants earn. What makes the difference is how much allowance they each earn and even with that, there’s a high chance of knowing it and adding it up to get their exact salary.

And honestly, I don’t really think it is or has ever been a big deal for the people in the medical field. I don’t know about other fields but this is what I’m conversant with and that’s why I’m talking about it. I honestly wouldn’t mind others knowing how much I earn unless I stand a risk or for safety reasons. I don’t think i have ever heard someone talk publicizing everyone’s salary for the general public but to some extent, I think it’s both crazy and a great idea.

Crazy because most people would see that as an invasion of privacy and a good idea because then, we will get to know the people who are stealing for us, examples are our politicians and what have your. Either way, I’d like to believe that 80 percent of the population would be against this for their own reason while the remaining 20 percent wouldn’t mind at all. What I think would work would be publicizing the salaries of government workers and it could be all government workers or only those in higher positions and the allowances they receive so that the public will we able to track where their taxes are going.

As for private companies, I don’t think they would even agree to the thought of this because most private institutions are there for the profit and most at times we see how their employees end up being underpaid. This topic I would say is a very tricky one and most people would have different views on the topic which is totally fine. We agree to disagree.

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image belongs to me.

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