Money Talks But should You?

Millennials are notorious for over-sharing, but are you going too far when you reveal your salary to family, friends and coworkers?

- Claire Soong

A study by financial services company Bankrate, Inc. found that 48 percent of millennials share their salaries with friends, and 30 percent with co-workers. This is a sizable increase compared to the 21 percent and 8 percent of their respective baby boomer counterparts. As with most things, there are pros and cons to sharing or hiding your salary, but there has been an emerging consensus favouring salary transparency over secrecy.

Sharing with friends

Given how much we share on social media, it’s perhaps unsurprising that people are more open about how much they make. Euodia, a psychologist, agrees: “People are getting more confident sharing [their salaries] because the culture of sharing personal information and knowledge has become increasingly transparent with the use of social media platforms. This, in turn, has empowered mass movements [such as this one].”