The Change Report™: Hannah Williams of Salary Transparent Street

On the importance of worker solidarity, pushing for progress despite the circumstances, and why we all need to be paid more.

Welcome to The Change Report™, an interview series exploring and explaining change from people who are making a difference in the world. This interview series is free but def consider supporting The Trend Report™ however you can, either by sharing this story or upgrading to a paid subscription 💚

For what feels like the start of my TikTok obsession, I’ve watched Salary Transparent Street. The videos are all of-a-kind, perhaps even an originator of the format: a person on the street asks a stranger a question, resulting in sometimes shocking results. Salary Transparent Street’s questions? What do you do for a living? How long have you been in the role? How much are you making? Do you feel well compensated? The responses are always illuminating as they’re never as high as you think, no matter how fancy or not-fancy a job may sound. Each question is delivered with a brightness, all while interrogating the person’s feeling about their compensation and if they’re feeling justified. People often go to vulnerable places, expressing frustrations and reflecting modern, lived realities of what it means to make money in an increasingly economically stratified world: these are the stories of the 99%, shown plainly, mapping out just how much we are and are not making.

The person holding the microphone is most often Hannah Williams, the excitable and endlessly positive CEO and founder of Salary Transparent Street. Based in Alexandria, Virginia but with a presence that spans the whole of the states, Hannah has built a simultaneous movement and empire with Salary Transparent Street by creating resources for job seekers and employers alike by advocating for a more open understanding of what people are and are not making. Hannah is doing very real work but it’s the TikTok, her social savvy and online presences, that have shifted any other person-on-the-street format into a bonafide movement: she has become the face of the hopeful worker, a backpack wearing, microphone holding leader who inspires to shift the little people toward big change. Economic equality, amplified by the social-entertainment complex.

I’ve long admired her work and always wondered how she came to create this movement — but I never imagined that I could actually hear the backstory given how major Salary Transparent Street had become. Then, while doing some volunteer work with a university alumni program, I found out that Hannah and I went to the same undergrad, our time there separated by a few years. I took that as a sign, or as a more elevated way to break the ice with a cold email — and it worked: Hannah was happy to share her view on making change and how she hopes to encourage and engage workers in these times, to empower people to not only improve their personal standing but the standing of their co-workers, their department, and everyone else in the working world around them.

Over a video call, Hannah and I met, chatting about everything from the importance of community to why everyone should know their rights. If you’re underpaid or know someone who is, read very closely — then get organized and stand up for yourself.

KRF: I’ve talked about this with a few people but, to me, having taste and making change are the same idea expressed in different ways: it’s about having a lens, showing that you can express an idea or worldview through the aesthetic or through action — and that anyone has the power to cultivate both. I'm curious how you define change, as someone who is quite the changemaker in the modern working world. Why is economic change important at this moment in time? From the outside, as a fan of your work, change seems like a big driver of what you’re doing, by exposing inequalities that need to change.

HW: Change, to me, can be movement away from or towards. It can go both ways. It can be positive or negative, but change is just a shift in the status quo, at least to me: it's changing the norm. It's tough to define change without using the word change [LAUGHS] But it's really just a shift in the status quo. I like to think that the work that we do with Salary Transparent Street challenges the status quo and really utilizes transparency to bring more light to something that has already been out there but has been secretive. We all have a paycheck. We all get a pay stub every week, or most of us do. We all know how much we make — but that's been internal information, up until we started Salary Transparent Street. I was inspired to start it after finding out that I was underpaid because of secrecy. The idea of Salary Transparent Street is really just bringing to light this information that has previously been in the dark. It's more so a change in the status quo and expectations of workers. The pay information has always been there, but now we're finally making it the subject instead of a secondary thing. A good example is, whenever I did job interviews, they would always ask “What are your salary requirements?” To me, Salary Transparent Street has shifted that on its head and changed it to empower workers to ask employers: how much is the budget for this role? The information is still the same: the pay is there, but previously it wasn't known. It's really just changing the system and expectations that we have of pay in work.

KRF: I love that and I believe that too but it's, it's funny, because — when you're in an interview situation — I don't ever think I have the power. I think, “I would be lucky if I have this!” which is an expression of status, of the unemployed or underemployed. What this gets at is a confidence because unemployment, underemployment, is about power, sure, but it's also about that “Who am I to complain? I got an interview. I'm lucky to have this.” feeling. Being able to start a relationship in the ways that you're talking about really redefines the relationship between the employee and the employer. It really sets you off on a good foot to protect yourself and to have a good relationship. I struggle with that, but you're contributing to changing people like me and beyond. People need to hear that such advocating moves the needle.

HW: Absolutely. I like to think that, because of how the movement has grown, workers that previously were too scared to have these conversations — and still are to this day as retaliation is very real and that hasn't stopped, unfortunately — have changed the system. Thousands of workers are asking this and changing the expectation. Workers that previously didn't feel empowered to do so don't have to worry about gathering that confidence: we have forced companies to list pay in job descriptions. By demanding change that has led to real legislation change. Social change leads to legal change. Whatever becomes acceptable in society then becomes the law in one way or another and, whether that's social law or actual law, that’s the beauty of our work: we demonstrated what the problem was, we gathered enough outrage about it to create this company — which says a lot on its own — but now there's legislation in effect that is empowering workers without them having to take that risk. It’s just a beautiful thing that one change leads to several others, which you can measure in society by people's pay.

KRF: Totally and, given tough economic times, it seems for a lot of people, who are coming from backgrounds where you're thankful for anything, it's easy to let that slip. This gets at why unions are so important now and why employee protections are so important because, even if you're not advocating for yourself in these ways, there are people looking out for you. When union busting happens by myriad different companies or third parties…obviously, that's a false flag, an apparition to make you think that you are being empowered when you're really disempowering a whole sector.

HW: Union busting doesn't just hurt unions and unionized workers: it hurts all workers.

KRF: And you're contributing to changing all of that, which is fabulous.

HW: I try.

KRF: I would be remiss to not mention this but, you know, this moment in the immediate present would be different if Kamala Harris had won: things might be easier. But things are changing. The world is always changing! How does that affect or contribute to the movement? Given that, in watching the inauguration, it was clear that the oligarchy was made manifest. It’s “more important now than ever” but how does this moment charge you up? How does it shift approaches?

HW: This makes me think of one of the questions I was noodling on a lot: how do we maintain momentum? I feel like this is a really good example of strong momentum being impacted and now slowed down. But, just because it's been slowed down, doesn't mean that it stops. It's kind of like energy: you can always transfer it — but you can't get rid of it. Energy is there and it's going to continue. It might have a low battery but it's still there. That's a really good example of momentum and how we can illustrate that with our work. There's always a win when workers know their rights and they know how legislation can help them. One of the things I've tried really hard to do with our page, although some people would say we've done terribly, is to try to focus on how the pro-worker movement is bipartisan: instead of choosing a side or a color, being red or blue, left or right, we need to understand…where are we as 99% of all workers? How does this legislation help me? What are my rights? What can I do? So we focused a lot of energy in the last two years on educating our community on these things and I think, as a whole, it has supercharged our energy and our momentum.

The Trump administration coming in is definitely a speed bump that is slowing our momentum — but you can't change the education that has happened and the transfer of knowledge that we've managed to share with our community of over 3 million, not including people who probably don't follow us. I know it's millions more! [LAUGHS] At the end of the day, you need to focus on the education of people and also empathy and trying to meet them where they're at. Instead of politicizing things, focusing on how can we help you, and how can policy do that? As a whole, that has helped us bridge the gap with a lot of people that might be more center-leaning, more right-leaning, to show them that we're all in this together.

The way we maintain that momentum is to continue to be a solid unit. Workers need to stick together. I can't predict the future, but I know it's going to be an uphill battle. It's not just going to be a speed bump: we're going to be going uphill. Our momentum is definitely going to take a hit but — if we stay true to our values, true to our education and our intelligence and what we know is a fact, that workers deserve more and they deserve more power — I think four years from now the workers are going to have another revolution at the polls.

KRF: Look: we know the ingredients are all there and, to the point of momentum, that's not going anywhere. Especially with situations like Luigi Mangione! It’s difficult to lead the horse to water but…everything is there. All the evidence, all the materials, are there! People are close to having a third eye opening — and I think you're definitely, obviously, contributing to that — but we’re to the point where this is spreading outside of being a partisan item. A “stronger together” mentality as far as, you know, economic status and rise and grind vibes — but being rich in spirit doesn’t mean your being underpaid is justified.

HW: We really need to recognize — and I see this all the time in our interviews and it drives me nuts — is we just pick on each other all the time. Workers who make under $50K hate any worker that makes over $50K. That includes workers who make under $250K! What we need to realize is that, in our socio-economic situation right now, we're all in the same boat. [LAUGHS] We are not anywhere close to this 1%: that is the true enemy! We have all the ingredients. We have everything we need to make this recipe, to bake it to perfect five star quality, but division is going to be the thing that slows our energy and slows our momentum. Unity is going to keep us going.

KRF: Obviously that's what the people upstairs want: that division. That’s why it’s being stoked. That's why certain visuals we saw at the inauguration are doing what they're doing online. To what you were saying — to me, at least — a big locus of change that is easy to forget in these extremely online times is the importance of community and, not necessarily community work (but not not community work). They go hand-in-hand. Yes, little you in your little job can advocate for salary transparency — but you and your team and whole department is very different. I’m curious, as someone who has built an online community while contributing to, creating, and propelling a movement for salary transparency, what is the importance of community? Why is it so important to get outside of “just you” in creating change?

HW: Community is everything. I want to try to be really smart and careful about my words and put this all together but…you said it best: you can be one person, in your little company, and try to make change. You can have an impact, but you can't go it alone. You need your colleagues. You need their support and you're stronger as a unit. Having a community is not only proof of concept for us that there is a problem, that we have people that also believe that there is a problem, but it also gives us the support and strength to solve the problem. We can't do it alone. It's impossible! Really focusing on that unity and bringing together community is always a good thing. You can always learn from somebody who's different from you.

That's so true to me because I grew up overseas: I wasn't a military brat but basically the same, as a diplomat brat, and I went to school with kids my entire life who looked completely different than me, who spoke a different language than me — and I was friends with them. We found things that we had in common as much as we found things that we had different. That's just so true of community: you don't have to have everything in common with somebody to also have a common problem between the two of you. Right now, workers as a whole are underpaid. I would venture to say almost every worker is underpaid because we have not seen a shift in federal minimum wage — and a lot of states, even though they're raising their minimum wages in the state…these workers are not making enough to pay their bills! They’re still living paycheck to paycheck. Whether or not we voted for the same person, at the end of the day the strength of our community is in this common problem that we share, that we need to get over ourselves and realize that working together is going to help us solve problems for all.

KRF: I love that. So, having built a large social media following that has contributed to not only creating a business but also creating a movement and contributing to a movement…Let's say there's somebody who's reading this who maybe their passion is immigration or income equality: what is your advice in step one or step whatever as far as making change where they are, given what you've done? What would you advise someone to do?

HW: Number one — point blank, period, which I tell to everybody — is know your rights. It's the best way to be an advocate, not just for yourself but for others. It shocks me how many people do not know their rights. Anybody reading this who's like “What are my rights?” or if you have a question mark, where you think you know your rights, the biggest thing you can do to help your situation is to do that research. It's not not that hard! Go to the National Labor Relations Board; figure out what your rights are, if you are legally allowed to talk about your pay; what you can do, what your protections are: you can Google that. All that information is available to you! That is the first step because, more often than not, people are going to find that, “Oh, that company did that to me — and that was illegal.” There's so many times, every single day, that workers are taken advantage of without knowing that companies are doing things illegally. And they get away with it because we don't know what our rights are! There are ways that you can hold your company accountable. There are ways that you can retaliate against illegal actions. And there are resources available to you to do that with support. If we don't know what our rights are, companies are going to continue to take advantage of us.

It's the most false thing out there that companies are looking out for you: they are not. They are looking out for their profit, their bottom line, and their shareholders. You're lying to yourself if you think that they are dedicated to protecting you. HR isn't even dedicated to protecting you! They're dedicated to protecting the company. Number one: know your rights. Number two: once you know your rights, make sure that they're not being taken advantage of. If you find yourself in a situation where you're being underpaid or a company did something illegal, advocate for yourself! Because it's like we said earlier: one person can't have that impact — but they can try. One of my favorite things is I'll get DMs, almost on a daily basis, from people telling me “I found out that this colleague makes way more than me…What do I do?” Talk to that colleague! Because you're on your own, if you want to go talk to management and be like, “I found out this person makes more than me. What do I do?” You have a lot harder chance of getting paid what you're worth on your own versus if you talk to your colleague and you say, “Hey: this isn't fair. Let's go together to management.” You're gonna get the raise and your colleagues, as a whole, are gonna be unified. You can work together to all get raises, But, if you go it alone, yeah, you might change your bottom line — but you're not helping others.

KRF: That's very good advice. And I think very practical, which applies to myriad things beyond just the working world.

HW: And I do want to say: I don't want people to feel guilty or, you know, dumb for not knowing their rights. It's like finance: none of us learned how to do taxes in school. They don't teach you your workplace rights in school either! Unless you're a labor lawyer! And most of us don't do that! So don't beat yourself up if you don't know what your rights are — but you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't look it up and try to figure it out.

KRF: That’s an excellent point…because I think people — myself included — assume certain things and assume that HR is helping you when that's often not the case.

HW: The best way to protect yourself is to know your rights.

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