In Norway, Everyone Can Know How Much You Earn

Wage transparency is a strange concept for most of us: not so in some of the Nordic countries. And while Norway, Sweden and Finland differ in exactly the amount of access they give the public, fundamentally your tax return would be public knowledge there. So how does it affect the world? And is it a good idea?

Let's look at the science and find out.

and on Instagram as @tomscottgo

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Asthana, A., Weaver, M., & Mason, R. (2016). Osborne likely to publish tax returns as No 10 says all leaders should. The Guardian.

Bø, E., Slemrod, J., & Thoresen, T. (2015). Taxes on the Internet: Deterrence Effects of Public Disclosure. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 7(1), 36-62.

Brown, G., Gardner, J., Oswald, A., & Qian, J. (2008). Does Wage Rank Affect Employees’ Well-being?. Industrial Relations, 47(3), 355-389.

Card, D., Mas, A., Moretti, E., & Saez, E. (2010). Inequality at Work: The Effect of Peer Salaries on Job Satisfaction.

Mance, H., & Packard, J. (2016). Angry British MPs rebel over Norway-style tax reporting. Financial Times.

Perez-Truglia, R. (2016). Measuring the Value of Self- and Social-Image: Evidence from a Natural Experiment. SSRN Electronic Journal.

Zakrzewski, C. (2015). Ex-Google Employee Exposes Unequal Pay With Spreadsheet. Wall Street Journal.

[joshstead]

It's official, tom has off-shore accounts

[alorachan]

"We could talk to Norwegian citizens and ask them, but I'm British and would rather not bother them, so I'll google instead"
Can see right through you, Tom

[brokensteps]

Student here. So, about £-20, 000k a year. Your turn

[marieulvund]

After living in the UK for 4 years now I've definitely come to realise that the way we talk about money is different. In Norway, because of these open tax numbers, nobody really cares what you earn, because it's not a secret. Asking someone in a conversation how much they earn is not an insult. Asking how much their house was or how much they paid for something is completely normal. I kept doing this when I came to England and it wasn't until these Panama cases became public (so after me living here for 3, 5 years) that I actually realised that English people are a lot more secretive about how much they earn, thus they have a largely more divided class system as well.
I have probably offended a large amount of people by asking about money haha.

[colinfurze]

the "science it" bit reminded me of the martian film. no tax on mars probably

[comp.lex]

Wage transparency within a company is also a key part of building and strengthening unions

[matszz]

In Sweden, this is called "principle of publicity", it applies to alot of things, not just income. Unless it's a matter of medical information, or national security, it's publicly available.

[LapToppDancer]

First company I worked for in UK had an open salary policy. It worked really well for the employees since the managers had to justify discrepancies. I certainly used it to good effect in appraisals.

[cognito]

Youtube Ad revenue over the last year: $4
And you Tom?

[eugeneruby]

I'm 32 now, and ever since I was a kid, I've never understood the taboo about discussing money/wages/salary. I make what I make, you make what you make, and the only people potentially benefitting from the taboo over discussing it are employers who are trying to pay different people different amounts for the same position and work.

I currently make $11.00 an hour as a baker and dishwasher in Oklahoma.

[nuthinnew]

The only thing that annoys me about no-one talking about how much they earn, is that without any data I don’t know if i’m being taken advantage of or even how much i’m worth

[davidvandrunen]

Employee hiding what they make helps employers to pay them less.

[mareli]

not only is personal earnings public, but company earnings are also even easier to look up, and it will list what the boss makes as its own list.

[Sortedbard]

I'm from Finland. Here I thought wage transparency through the tax agency was the norm everywhere. Interesting to know that is not the case. We can/could google how much our neighbors make in a month but since it is nothing new to us nobody cares. 😅

[CopyOfMe]

So this is not normal outside of my country? The newspapers here in Sweden often have headlines along the lines of "See how much you neighbour earns!" or "Top ten richest in your town".

[tuxedotservo]

I was working at a (at the time at least) prominent IT outsourcing company.
On the account I was on, an unfortunate administrative assistant released to everyone on a particular account an e-mail which contained a spreadsheet.
From that spreadsheet, you could quite easily compute the yearly salary of anyone else on that account.
The ppor lady tried to recall the e-mail, but too late - dozens of people had already saved the spreadsheet to their local drive.
Let's just say - that made things a bit weird for a while around the office.

[capitalex]

Tom Scott confirmed to have off-shore investments.

[OriginalPiMan]

So what you're saying is, 'the amount I (ie you, Tom Scott) earn is a Thing You Might Not Know'?
Works for me.

[Wordsnwood]

In Ontario, Canada, we have what is known as the "Sunshine List"... all provincial employees who make more than $100k are listed in a public database each year. It's made for some "interesting" news stories over the years.
You first, indeed.

[ZlimboardOfficial]

I'm from Sweden. Here I thought wage transparency through the tax agency was the norm everywhere. Interesting to know that is not the case.