This. When you come from a poor background, your parents and friends are like "I have no idea how much these jobs pay", your colleagues are like "we are forbidd

This. When you come from a poor background, your parents and friends are like "I have no idea how much these jobs pay", your colleagues are like "we are forbidden to talk to each other about our salaries", and your potential employers are like "no I won't tell you how much we offer, you tell me your expectations first". And if you ask for a fraction of what anyone else with the same qualifications would ask for, they just smile and give it to you, keeping you in the dark. I spent my first few years working for peanuts. The wake-up moment came when I decided to quit, because I believed I was too incompetent for my job (I had a heavy case of impostor syndrome back then), and my boss misunderstood my words, and instead doubled my salary. Then I started to suspect that if there was already enough space to double my salary, perhaps there is more. Turned out that yes, there was a lot of space to grow. Soon I was making about 10 times my original salary... in a different company. (Today you could probably find that information online; if not precisely, then at least within an order of magnitude. But this happened decades ago.)