Don't read this if you get poutraged over other peoples pay

**Big Money** · 08-06-2013, 06:23 PM

I warned you.

Tall people get paid more money. Although this might seem like it shouldn't make sense anywhere other than on a basketball court, it seems the taller you are, the more you can expect to pad your wallet.

A 2004 study by Timothy Judge at the University of Florida found that for every inch of height, a tall worker can expect to earn an extra $789 per year. That means two equally skilled coworkers would have a pay differential of nearly $5,000 per year, simply because of a 6-inch height differential, according to the study.

But a 2006 study by Princeton economists Anne Case and Christina Paxson indicates there could be a good reason for the pay gap -- tall people are smarter. Taller children score better on tests even before formal schooling begins, according to the study, and the tall adults go on to take higher-paying jobs that require greater intelligence.

Obese workers (those who have a Body Mass Index of more than 30) are paid less than normal-weight coworkers at a rate of $8,666 a year for obese women, and $4,772 a year for obese men, according to a George Washington University study that cited data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth in 2004. And other studies indicate obese women are even more likely to be discriminated against when it comes to pay, hiring and raises.

A study reported in the International Journal of Obesity described an experiment in which people were shown pictures of job applicants, as well as resumes, and asked to score them on suitability, starting salary, and employability. What the test subjects didn’t realize, however, is the pictures they were being shown were actually of the same person, but before and after bariatric weight loss surgery. Overwhelmingly, the thinner candidates were chosen for the job and with higher starting salaries than the heavier applicants.

A 2010 study from the Queensland University of Technology studied 13,000 Caucasian women and found blondes earn more than 7 percent more than female employees with any other hair color. The study said the pay bump is equivalent to the boost an employee would generally see from one entire year of additional education.

As a bonus, the study also found blonde women marry men who earn an average of 6 percent more than husbands of women with other hair colors.

If people think you’re good-looking, they’ll pay you more money.

So says a Yale University study from Daniel Hamermesh, which finds employers pay a beauty premium to attractive employees. The beautiful workers earn an average of roughly 5 percent more, while unattractive employees can miss out on up to almost 9 percent, according to the study.

"Effects for men are at least as great as for women. Unattractive women have lower labor-force participation rates, and marry men with less human capital," the study concludes.

http://www.salary.com/7-ways-your-lo...fect-your-pay/