Pay secrecy as class screening

As work shifts from visible hourly wages to negotiable white‑collar pay, norms of silence about compensation operate as an informal screen: people who can negotiate (or who know how much to ask for) win, while others are excluded. That taboo is not just politeness but a mechanism that hides inequality and amplifies social‑fluency advantages. — If true, this reframes pay‑transparency debates: transparency is about more than fairness—it breaks a class‑based screening mechanism that entrenches advantage.