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In 2015, I moved to the U.S. as a foreign national under an H-1B work visa to be with my American partner, who was returning to the U.S. to take a new job here.
I was recently offered a new position with greater visibility. As I was preparing for year-end performance reviews, I noticed that one of my new direct reports, “Oscar,” is earning 25 percent more than I am — even though he has a job grade below mine.
During my own year-end performance review, should I ask my boss to match my compensation to Oscar’s? If my request is declined, I’m afraid of becoming resentful toward Oscar, as he barely met my expectations before I was even aware of our compensation disparity.
Regardless of the outcome, I like my boss, so I probably won’t quit or apply for an external position until he leaves or retires.
Sarah: Why on Earth would you think your employer should raise your pay to match Oscar’s? Don’t you think you deserve more?
Your situation is a textbook example of how discriminatory pay gaps operate. Workers hamstrung by low pay at the start of their careers tend to fall behind exponentially in opportunities, earning power, and retirement savings. “Catching up from that disadvantage is like climbing Mount Fuji,” said Gloria L. Blackwell, CEO of the American Association of University Women (AAUW).
And while individual workers have to decide for themselves what they can tolerate, the effects of pay inequity often go beyond one person’s paycheck. As Blackwell puts it: “As long as [the employer is] not challenged, not only are they going to continue underpaying [you], they are going to continue doing it to other women.”
You note that your employer has a reputation for underpaying women and foreign-born workers, counting on them to be too intimidated, uninformed or desperate for employment to object. By shrugging and accepting that treatment, you are not only selling yourself short, you are also undermining others who lack the agency to protest or walk away from an unfair deal, even with the law on their side.
The good news, according to Blackwell, is that “it really is never too late to advocate for yourself and negotiate when you discover a pay disparity.” Nationwide efforts to implement pay-range transparency mandates and salary history bans are helping to level the playing field by eliminating secrecy and other systemic barriers.
Blackwell recommends the following steps to prepare for this long-overdue discussion:
- Document your accomplishments and contributions, ideally in hard numbers. Showing the dollar amounts you have generated or saved for the company and the number of people you have trained also shows what the company stands to lose if you were to leave. How would they fare with Oscar in your position?
- Find out what the market is paying for someone with your experience and qualifications. You can research your job title and duties on Glassdoor.com or Salary.com, but conversations with peers at your employer would be even more valuable and relevant. If you’re not comfortable asking what your colleagues make, offer information about your own wages and ask whether that sounds in line with what the company typically pays others at your level. Incidentally, even if your employer tries to discourage them, discussions about pay are legally protected under the National Labor Relations Act.
Here is why you want to broaden your pay research: The discrepancy with Oscar’s pay seems obvious, but he is a single data point. Management may rationalize that he has specialized technical expertise or certification that justifies paying him more than you. Or management may start paying you slightly more than Oscar but still less than you deserve overall. A broad apples-to-apples comparison with peers who out-earn you is harder to explain away or patch over. What you have learned about Oscar may end up being just the tip of a very large, lopsided iceberg.
- Get comfortable with asking for more. After coaching thousands of women and men in salary negotiation techniques, Blackwell said she still loves “seeing the lightbulb” in trainees’ faces when they recognize the power they have to advocate for themselves. AAUW offers self-guided, online Work Smart courses and live workshops to help you strategize, set your goals, and refine your pitch, “practicing that conversation and anticipating … responses so you feel better equipped,” Blackwell said. You can visit aauw.org or email salary@aauw.org to learn more about these resources.
- Above all, now is a good time to engage in some “introspection around your own values … and whether [you are] willing to stay in a place that doesn’t value what [you’re] bringing to the table,” Blackwell said. We all have accepted regrettable deals because they made sense or seemed the only viable option at the time. But now you have encountered an eye-opening truth you can’t unsee: “That’s the fork in the road when you determine how you are going to align your values with your employer,” Blackwell said.
As always, it’s up to you how you respond to your findings: Stay and fight for parity, or go find a company that doesn’t need to be persuaded to respect you. Personally, I don’t see how any amount of intellectual stimulation could soothe the resentment of knowing you have been undervalued and exploited, and how many people at your employer have been actively or passively complicit in keeping you that way. Including your likable boss.
Pro tip: U.S. employers hiring workers on H-1B visas must pay them whatever is greater: the actual wage they pay other workers with similar experience and qualifications, or the prevailing wage for the occupation in the area of intended employment, according to the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division.