When negotiating starting salaries, most U.S. women, men don't ask for higher pay

Used in 2 entries

For each citing entry, the verbatim excerpt and Likelier's calculation notes (how the source's number was converted to the lifetime-probability framing) are shown below. Click through to read the full claim ledger.

1. [1] Asking for a raise Decision · inaction side

   Statistic

   Most US workers did not ask for higher pay than initially offered when last hired; only about 30% did ask (32% of men, 28% of women)

   “"Most U.S. workers who are not self-employed say they did not ask for higher pay than what was initially offered the last time they were hired for a job, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. ... men are slightly more likely than women (32% vs. 28%) to say they did ask for higher pay than what was offered."”

   Calculation notes

   Pew Research Center nationally representative survey (5,188 employed, non-self-employed US workers out of 5,775 US adults), 2023. Establishes that a majority of workers never attempt to negotiate: only about 30% say they asked for higher pay than initially offered (32% of men, 28% of women), so roughly 70% did not. Pew does not print a single combined percentage; it reports "most" plus the gender split. This large non-negotiating majority is the population from which the inaction-regret figure is drawn, and it is directionally consistent with the Resume-Now finding that not asking for a pay increase is the most common career regret. Pew itself measures behavior, not regret.
   

   Source date: 2023-04-05 · Accessed: 2026-05-13

2. [2] Salary negotiation Decision · inaction side

   Statistic

   Most U.S. workers did not ask for higher pay than what was initially offered when last hired; only 32% of men and 28% of women say they did ask

   “"Most U.S. workers who are not self-employed say they did not ask for higher pay than what was initially offered the last time they were hired for a job. ... But men are slightly more likely than women (32% vs. 28%) to say they did ask for higher pay than what was offered."”

   Calculation notes

   Pew Research nationally representative survey (5,902 employed U.S. adults, Feb 2023). Confirms the baseline that a majority of workers do not negotiate — only about 3 in 10 (men 32%, women 28%) say they asked for higher pay — providing denominator context for the inaction-regret figure: most of the regretful population never attempted negotiation at all.
   

   Source date: 2023-04-05 · Accessed: 2026-06-30