Do you know how much you make and where every dollar goes? In this episode of Catalyst Spills the Tea, a video YouTube series, we spill the tea on “payday routines,” a social media trend where influencers share best practices for saving money and living within your means.
Gen Z and Millennials, whose early careers have been marked by recession, inflation, COVID-19, and other financially challenging moments, are well aware of the importance of fiscal responsibility. They are collectively ushering in a new era of pay transparency by taking to social media to democratize, normalize, and demystify budgeting and salaries.
- Andrew Grissom, Director, Community Growth
- Tara Van Bommel, Senior Director, Statistician
- Host: Isabela Stille, Sr. Associate, Social Media
About Catalyst Spills the Tea
Catalyst Spills the Tea is a video series where we discuss trending topics in workplace culture, gender equity, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are all about creating equitable workplaces for everyone, so you won’t find people more obsessed with workplace culture than we are. Yes, we love research, but we also love memes, video shorts, pop culture, and debating hot trends just like the rest of you. We decided to bring our watercooler talk and infuse it with a little bit of our research in this video series. Essentially, we’re bringing the research receipts to #worktok. Buckle up!
Wait, what does “spill the tea” mean?
“Spilling the tea” is slang used to refer to gossip or news. It’s popular on the Internet and social media.
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Transcript
00:00:03:13 – 00:00:04:09
Hi, everybody.
00:00:04:09 – 00:00:06:14
Welcome to Catalyst Spills the Tea, where we break down and discuss trending topics in DEI. Today I’m your host.
I’m Bella Stille, the Senior Associate for Social Media at Catalyst. And we’re spilling the tea on payday routines.
00:00:17:15
Hi, everyone. I’m Andrew Grissom. I am Director of Community Growth at Catalyst.
00:00:22:16
I’m Tara Van Bommel, and I’m Senior Director and Statistician in the Research and Development Department at Catalyst.
00:00:29:19
What are payday routines? It’s a new Tik Tok trend that you might have seen where users share how much they make and where every dollar of their paycheck goes.
So you might have seen also some videos by pages like Salary Transparent Street encouraging salary transparency by asking strangers on the streets of large cities in the US what their salaries are. Now, why is this happening? Let’s ask Andrew and Tara.
00:00:55:06
It’s basically never been more difficult to make ends meet. And so Gen Z is leveraging the tools that they’ve grown up with by going to social media to crowdsource and educate one another.
We’re seeing this not only happening on places like TikTok and social media, but, you know, in laws and workplace norms occurring all over the world.
00:01:16:03
So why don’t we talk a little bit about the implications of this trend?
00:01:19:11
Pay transparency laws and practices are really explicitly designed to shed light on unfair and inequitable pay decisions, particularly in jobs and workplaces where there may be discriminatory behaviors that have really thrived for a long time under pay secrecy.
00:01:36:08
What we’re really talking about here is the racial wealth gaps and systemic oppression.
And so dismantling that requires a movement. And I’m really hopeful that this trend can ignite that progress.
00:01:47:16
Well, in looking further into it, how do you think women are, in particular, impacted by this trend?
00:01:53:08
So much of what I’ve seen on social media is a lot of women talking about their payday routines.
Right?
So in a large part, I see them as driving this trend, which is great. And it sort of demonstrates how women are taking action to empower their own financial security.
But on the flip side, you know, the cynic in me can’t also help but wonder if this could be, you know, at least in some situations, yet another example of women’s unpaid labor.
00:02:22:23
Let’s think about companies. Why should companies care about this trend?
00:02:26:11
Underpinning all these laws is this effort to close the gender pay gap and ensure that pay is fair and equitable.
00:02:34:04
But I’ll also say that we’re sort of concerned about companies taking a little bit of a knee-jerk reaction to this growing sense of, you know, compliance.
So just quickly, oh, I’m going to comply with the new law and then my work is done, you know, particularly in the US, as I said earlier, a lot of these laws are really new and require just disclosing a pay range on job advertisements. Some companies we’ve seen are just simply posting ranges to comply, even taking huge ranges for a post and posting those online.
And that’s not really helpful to job candidates.
00:03:12:18
That’s so right, Andrew, and I think the opportunity here is for companies to embed financial wellness into their value proposition.
So when companies thoughtfully respond by doing things like a pay equity audit and reinventing pay decision processes, you know, they are actively creating a more equitable workplace for everyone.
As this trend shows.
00:03:35:05
A lot of people, Gen Z and people across generations are just, I think, at a point where we’re ready to talk about money and hold our organizations accountable for nondiscriminatory pay.
And if you won’t do it, your employees might feel the need to move on to another employer or maybe even your competitor down the street.
00:03:54:18
It’s really interesting to think about this as working towards demystifying practices at large.
And it’s really, truly what this pay transparency you know, in general, everyone online is talking about it, even if it’s in different ways.
I think employees are just taking greater ownership of their financial health and they want their employers to take a greater role in that too.
00:04:16:06
So, Andrew and Tara, do you have any payday routines?
00:04:20:02
This was something that I was never taught growing up, and I’m really excited to see and learn from this.
And I’m hoping I can stash away a little extra money going forward.
00:04:29:12
Like Tara, I – this is this trend is inspiring me to look at budgeting more holistically.
And so I’m looking forward to doing that as well.
00:04:38:13
Thank you, Andrew and Tara, for helping us spill the tea on payday routines.
Thanks for joining us, and I guess we’ll see you next time.