This study examined the influence of sociocultural factors on salary depression. In particular, the influence of the media representation of the job bank starting salary survey on the starting salaries and socioeconomic realities of youth labor in Taiwan was investigated. The researcher found that news reports on the job bank starting salary survey were fraught with validity concerns in their representation of depressed trends in youth salary levels. These surveys are a primary influence in Taiwanese youth labor’s socioeconomic reality; representations of survey results are the basis of anchoring effects, price collusions, salary climate perceptions, and panic effects. In this paper, the author discusses the complex role of the news media in the salary market, information power and order in the labor salary market, and suggestions for future improvements in salary information market disorder.