Your coworker asks what you make. Are you alone in wanting to dodge it?

The question can arrive after a meeting, when everyone is packing up and the room feels casual enough for one more comment. A coworker asks what you make, what raise you got or how you handled a money decision. Suddenly your voice has to choose a lane. Answer plainly, soften it or move the conversation somewhere safer.

YouGov asked U.S. adults about this kind of work-money conversation in a 2022 survey of 1,000 U.S. adult citizens. The headline question is simple: if your first instinct is to dodge, are you alone? The answer depends on the difference between mild awkwardness and a much stronger reaction.

The open side of the office money conversation is small

The YouGov item asked how comfortable or uncomfortable people would be discussing personal finances with coworkers. On the comfortable side, the survey reported 6% as Very comfortable and 16% as Somewhat comfortable.

The survey asked about more than salary

The exact YouGov wording was broader than a salary number. The crosstabs list the item as “Discussing Personal Finances: Your coworkers” and ask, “How comfortable or uncomfortable would you be discussing your personal finances with...” that group. The unweighted N for the item was 990.

That scope matters for how you read the office scene. A coworker might ask about pay, a raise, rent, debt, savings or how you handled a money choice. Those are different facts, but they create the same speaking decision: do you put private financial information into words inside a work relationship?

Those two comfortable categories do not make the office feel like a free-for-all. They show that full ease is uncommon, and partial ease is more common than full ease. Many people may answer a coworker, but the data does not place wide-open comfort at the center of the room.

The answer has to come out in your voice

A salary question is not an abstract poll once it lands in front of you. It becomes a sentence you either say or do not say. You may hear yourself over-explaining, laughing too quickly, dropping your volume or giving a vague answer that was supposed to sound relaxed. For people who watch how their voice comes across, that moment sits close to communication apprehension: the pressure is in the conversation, not on a stage.

Age changes the picture, but it does not make openness the default. YouGov reported that among adults ages 18-29, 10% were Very comfortable and 23% were Somewhat comfortable. Among adults ages 30-44, 7% were Very comfortable and 23% were Somewhat comfortable.

That age split explains why the same question can feel different across a team. A younger coworker may treat pay talk as useful transparency. An older coworker may hear it as over the line. If you are in your late 20s, 30s or early 40s, you may work with people on both sides of that norm at once. The remaining benchmark is the one that answers the dodge question most directly.

The dodge benchmark

Here is the clearest answer. In the same YouGov survey, 33% of adults said they would be Very uncomfortable discussing personal finances with coworkers.

So no, wanting to dodge the question does not put you in some strange corner of the workplace. The strong-discomfort group is large. The survey does not say what people should disclose, and it does not separate salary from every other personal finance topic. It does show that a firm recoil from coworker money talk is a major part of the norm.

What this means for you

If a coworker asks what you make and you feel your face tighten, you are not automatically being secretive or difficult. You may simply be in the large group that finds this conversation strongly uncomfortable.

Decide your line before the question arrives. You can answer directly if you want to. You can share a range. You can say, “I’m not ready to get into exact numbers, but I can talk about how I approached the raise conversation.” The goal is not to force yourself into openness. The goal is to have words ready so your nerves do not choose for you.