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A woman in New York City recently took to social media to claim that she applied for a job posting for her current position after her company posted the same position with a significantly higher salary.
Kimberly Nguyen, a 25-year-old user experience (UX) writer, shared in her now-viral series of tweets that she came across the job ad by accident LinkedInwhich advertises a salary range that is “32k-$90k more than I am currently being paid.”
Nguyen said Tuesday that she discovered the discrepancy because of a wage transparency law recently admitted to new York, which requires companies to include a pay range in their job postings. While the law was intended to promote fair pay, it also exposed unequal pay policies, as in Nguyen’s case.
“My company just posted a LinkedIn job for what I do now (so we’re hiring another UX writer) and now, thanks to salary transparency laws, I see that they intend to pay this guy $32k- $90k more than I’m currently being paid so I applied,” she tweeted.
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Nguyen, a Vietnamese American poet and essayist who published it first book of poetry tweeted last October that she had responded to the post by applying for her own job.
In her tweets, Nguyen expressed frustration with her current employer’s efforts at performative “inclusion” and the lack of resolution regarding her own underpayment.
“I’ve also been arguing for months about pay inequality. I have told my managers repeatedly that I know I am underpaid. I’ve achieved discontent and they know they can do that right now in a tough job market,” she wrote.
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“I also have a bit of audacity, so I posted the link in the group chat of all us underpaid UX writers, and now we have an emergency meeting tomorrow to talk about it,” she continued.
The company then allegedly held an emergency meeting where it was told the job listing was meant to be an internal publication.
“They say it was an internal announcement and it wasn’t meant for someone to apply externally because public companies legally have to post jobs even if it’s an internal conversion…but that doesn’t solve the fact that someone internally is now still going to make $32k+ more???” she said.
However, instead of the company’s writers getting a raise, discussions of potential layoffs have surfaced, prompting Nguyen to announce that he is now “looking for UX writing roles, preferably remote.”
Nguyen’s original tweet has received over 12.3 million views and 221,000 likes. Several Twitter users sympathized with her and wrote about their own similar experiences by replying to her Twitter thread.
“I wish I had thought of that. I succeeded a line manager in a re-organization and learned that they were paid significantly more than I was,” wrote one user. “I was told they couldn’t adjust mid-year but they promised to sort it in bonus time. They didn’t fix it in bonus time.”
“Well done. I went through a similar situation as a copy editor over 30 years ago,” shared another user. “Lowest paid, top performer on the news desk and the only woman.” It turned it into a nearly successful union drive. It’s disgusting that companies continue to do this nonsense.”
Since then, people have sent Nguyen job offers and supported her other endeavors, such as her book “Here I Am Burn Me,” which became #1 in Asian American poetry on Amazon.
“You all sell me everywhere: AWP, Amazon, my own website. I am so grateful to all of you who have supported me through a truly amazing time. I hope you love my verses as much as I loved writing them,” she tweeted to her supporters.
In an interview with Buzzfeed after her tweets went viral, Nguyen said she didn’t expect the attention they got.
“I was just venting and I didn’t expect there to be this reaction to my venting. People complain on the internet all the time and it doesn’t go viral. To be honest, I’m really overwhelmed by all the attention.”