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

   58% of US workers accepted their initial pay offer without attempting to negotiate

   “"About six-in-ten U.S. workers (58%) say they did not ask for higher pay than what their employer initially offered when they were last hired."”

   Calculation notes

   Pew Research Center nationally representative survey of US adults, 2023. Establishes that the majority of workers who never negotiated forms the denominator population for the inaction-regret figure. The Pew non-negotiation rate (58%) closely matches the Resume-Now regret rate (58-60%), suggesting that the population that did not ask is nearly the same as the population that regrets not asking.
   

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

2. [2] Salary negotiation Decision · inaction side

   Statistic

   58% of workers accepted the pay they were initially offered without attempting to negotiate

   “"About six-in-ten U.S. workers (58%) say they did not ask for higher pay than what their employer initially offered when they were last hired."”

   Calculation notes

   Pew Research nationally representative survey. Confirms the baseline that a majority of workers do not negotiate, providing the denominator context for the 57% regret figure — most of the regretful population never attempted negotiation at all.
   

   Source date: 2023-04-05 · Accessed: 2026-04-26