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Missouri residents are voting on Tuesday on whether to phase out state income tax and allow lawmakers to expand sales taxes, one of several ballots this year that will help shape a growing divide in red-state and blue-state income-tax policy.
Republican-led states have been racing each other to cut or eliminate individual income tax, while some blue states are attempting to raise income tax on the wealthiest residents—usually on annual income over $1 million. READ MORE
As a Detroit-based apprentice electrician, Tyler Shelton usually spends his days climbing into manholes to repair cables and other electrical equipment. Recently, though, his employer has begun diverting crews to a massive new data center rising about an hour outside the city.
“Everybody wants that money,” Shelton said in a recent interview with The New York Times. The jobs pay well, but they are also draining the workforce from regular assignments, he said. As more workers head to data centers, Shelton’s crew is left trying to cover the same volume of maintenance and repair work with fewer hands. READ MORE
The most valuable workers in technology cannot be kept, whatever the price. That is the uncomfortable admission running through the AI industry this week, as elite researchers keep hopping between labs that have offered them almost everything money can buy.
The trigger was a single line in an Axios report on the talent wars. A source said Anthropic’s chief executive, Dario Amodei, has grown worried that new hires are joining for the money rather than the mission. The internet did the rest. READ MORE
More companies are moving away from broad "peanut butter"-style pay raises for workers in favor of merit-based and other kinds of compensation sweeteners for top employees, according to new insights from Payscale. READ MORE
Pay transparency has become one of the defining workplace trends of recent years, with lawmakers and employers increasingly embracing salary disclosure as a tool to promote fairness, strengthen employer brands, and help candidates make more informed career decisions. But while few dispute the value of transparency, new research suggests that how organizations present salary information may be just as important as whether they disclose it at all.
A new study from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations finds that broad salary ranges in job postings may unintentionally discourage women from applying for positions and influence how they negotiate compensation, potentially undermining one of the primary goals of pay transparency laws. READ MORE
Salary budgets in 2026 are stabilizing as boards and senior leaders move beyond the short-term adjustments of recent years. Inflation remains volatile in many countries, reflecting varied conditions in markets around the world. Recently released data suggest leaders are returning to measured, disciplined salary increases, with fewer signs of reactive or inflation-driven spikes. READ MORE
When I got my first job in tech, I didn’t know negotiation was even on the table. The recruiter asked what salary I wanted, and I gave a number below the bottom of their range. They came back with the lowest number in their band—still more than I had asked for—and I was thrilled. I had no idea I’d left money on a table I couldn’t see.
Then I started teaching at a Bay Area coding bootcamp in the evenings. A coworker mentioned what he made and it was nearly double my salary for roughly the same work. My jaw dropped. READ MORE
Once you’ve settled into a job, it’s easy to fall into the rhythm of meetings, deadlines, and regular paychecks without thinking much about how your income compares to others.
But seeing how your salary stacks up by age—and how earnings rise and fall over time, including which group earns the most—can give you a better sense of your financial trajectory. READ MORE
Salary budgets in 2026 are stabilizing as boards and senior leaders move beyond the short-term adjustments of recent years. Inflation remains volatile in many countries, reflecting varied conditions in markets around the world. Recently released data suggest leaders are returning to measured, disciplined salary increases, with fewer signs of reactive or inflation-driven spikes. READ MORE
Few college majors pay better after graduation than computer engineering.
The major also shows why more high school graduates are questioning whether a bachelor’s degree is worth it: computer engineers earn the highest early-career median wage of any major, $90,000, but they also face an unemployment rate of 7.8%, one of the highest the Federal Reserve Bank of New York tracks. READ MORE
A quarter of Americans believe their financial situation has stopped them from finding “true love,” according to new research.
That was revealed in a new survey of 2,000 general population Americans, which examined the intersection of finances, dating and finding love.
Younger respondents were more likely to believe their finances have prevented them from finding “true love,” with 40% of Gen Z admitting this, compared to just 11% of baby boomers. READ MORE
Few salary negotiations end exactly as employees hope. A request for a raise may be rejected, postponed or met with a counteroffer that forces an employee to rethink their options. While such outcomes can feel disappointing, career advisers say they are often the beginning of a broader conversation about an employee's future within an organization.
The key is resisting the temptation to treat the outcome as purely personal. READ MORE
George Gershwin’s It Ain’t Necessarily So, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, debuted in Porgy and Bess in 1935. The song playfully questioned whether accepted truths were, in fact, true at all.
Regular column readers know that we often say the same thing about employment contracts. What appears to be clear on paper frequently turns out to be legally unenforceable. READ MORE
A federal jury in Portland found that Nike violated the Equal Pay Act and Oregon law by paying former engineer Heather Hender less than male colleagues and promoting her more slowly because of her gender, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. Jurors ordered Nike to pay Hender $19,739.52 in back pay and at least $7.5 million in punitive damages, local news station KGW reported, a figure that exceeds the $2 million her attorneys had requested. READ MORE
Stock options are a common form of equity compensation that give employees the right to buy company stock at a set price. Two of the most widely used structures are incentive stock options (ISOs) and nonqualified stock options (NSOs). While both can help align employee and company interests, they differ in eligibility rules, tax treatment and administrative requirements—differences employers should understand before designing or revising a stock option plan.
Stock options tend to be an effective compensation tool for two primary reasons: Employees must invest their own capital to exercise options, which reinforces their long term commitment to the company. And options generally provide value only if the company’s stock price increases, encouraging employees to focus on enhancing overall business value. READ MORE
Employee stock options can be a great perk. Even a life-changing one. But the multiple variables at play make it hard to know if and when to exercise your options.
Your stock options give you the right to exercise, but you’re never obligated to do so. Assuming you stay employed at the company, you can exercise your options at any time between when they vest and when they expire — typically, this will span up to 10 years. If you’re leaving your employer, check the fine print in your options contract to see what time frame you have to exercise; this is usually referred to as the “post-termination exercise period.” READ MORE
The adage “love is blind” might not apply when it comes to finances.
Although American workers saw median weekly earnings of $1,251 in the second quarter of 2026, totaling roughly $65,000 per year, many U.S. singles want their ideal partner to earn well above that figure. READ MORE
Salary progression in public accounting may no longer follow the steady path many professionals expect, according to new placement data from specialist recruitment firm Distinct.
Drawing on more than 400 public accounting placements completed across North America during the past three years, the analysis suggests compensation growth often slows considerably at Senior level before increasing significantly once professionals move into management. READ MORE
Salary negotiations used to begin with one side knowing exactly how much the job paid, and the other side taking a guess. But now, more states are leveling the playing field.
Virginia and Maine are the latest to require many employers to disclose salary ranges in job postings, bringing the total to 18 states and Washington, D.C. Virginia’s new salary-transparency law went into effect on July 1, while Maine’s will go live on July 29. For job seekers, that means walking into salary negotiations with a better idea of what an employer is willing to pay. READ MORE
About 6.6 million student loan borrowers are behind on payments, and the problem is worsening, as borrowers over 50 now have the highest serious delinquency rates of any age group. The difference between struggling for decades and paying off your loans in a few years often comes down to one decision—your major.
Investopedia ranked different bachelor’s degree majors utilizing median wages in early career, as recorded by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the amount of student loan debt per bachelor’s degree, as calculated by the Education Data Initiative. READ MORE
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