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The time to negotiate your salary is during the hiring process. Employees are not owed anything above the agreed upon amount, no matter how successful the company is.

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In a right to work state, every single day is an implicit negotiation with your employer. The only reason you go to work that day is because you’re satisfied with your compensation.

The world would be a better place if employees were owed something above their agreed upon compensation when their company has extraordinary success, so I choose to believe that they are.

RSUs, stock options - those provide incentive that scales with the company’s success. Just because you’re at Company X that makes billions of dollars and makes one more billion next year does not automatically entitle you to part of that 1b as it’s likely due to work done by employees before you.

Turning it around - would you also take a paycut, or even clawing back bonuses or past income if the company starts losing money?

You will take a paycut on average, although usually it's borne by a few taking 100% cuts.

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