I want to be kind because your intentions seem good. But I’m also not entirely clear on what your intentions are. Are you trying to help your colleagues? It doesn’t sound like you have any guarantee that your boss would reapportion your raise to other employees, and I’m not sure how much solace they would extract from this act of self-denial.
In fact, I suspect they’d mostly find it confusing. You’re living comfortably right now, but who knows what the next decade could bring? You might lose your job; you might fall in love with someone who lives on the other side of the country; a piano could fall on your head, Looney Tunes-style. There are many eventualities that could suddenly put you in the same boat as your “struggling” co-workers. They understand this by virtue of their own circumstances, which is why they would no doubt happily take a raise right now if one was offered, and why they’re not likely to be impressed by your eschewal.
Maybe you’re trying to assuage the guilt you feel at being the beneficiary of an unequal system. If that’s the case, why not use your position of security and influence to advocate better pay for your peers? If you don’t need the extra money, why not take and redistribute it — say, to labor or inequality-focused causes, or even directly to other employees?
If you’re worried about a rift opening up between yourself and your lower-paid colleagues, picking up the lunch tab once or twice a week and supporting their interests in your capacity as a respected, higher-level employee will go a lot farther at strengthening bonds of solidarity than loudly telling everyone you turned down a raise because you know they’re all worse off.
And if you don’t care about the interpersonal office dynamics, and are asking the question out of a wholly abstract sense of fairness and justice, that’s even more reason to accept the raise. When you negotiate your salary, you’re negotiating not only on behalf of yourself but also, indirectly, on behalf of anyone who might take the job after you. If you accept less than what your employer is willing to pay, you’re setting a lower floor out of which any successor will have to negotiate. You may be financially solid, but will that person be?
Indeed, on some level you’re negotiating on behalf of anyone else doing the same kind of work, now and in the future, at any workplace, and the salary you accept can provide a reference point for both bosses and employees elsewhere. You might be satisfied with your current rate, and want to avoid the appearance of greed in front of less fortunate co-workers. But the symbolic solidarity of refusing a raise is worth a lot less than the real aid of putting upward pressure on wages.
