Excerpt #101 from my book, Religion, An Obstacle to Human Progress
Surveys show increases in almost every category of executive compensation, including base salary, annual bonus, total annual compensation, restricted stock, long-term incentive payouts, and the value realized from the exercise of stock options.
The CEO-to-worker pay gap has expanded exponentially over the past several decades, writes journalist Abigail Johnson Hess.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimates that CEO compensation has grown 1,322% since 1978 while typical worker compensation has risen just 18%.
In 2020, CEOs of the top 350 firms in the U.S. made $24.2 million, on average — 351 times more than a typical worker.
A 2019 Institute for Policy Studies report estimates that 80% of S&P 500 companies pay their CEO over 100 times more than they pay their median worker.
That means it would take 100 years for the average employee at one of these companies to earn what their CEO makes in a year.
Abigail Johnson Hess, a fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, said, “It used to be that in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, CEOs made 3.3 times what a top 0.1% earner made.
Now, it’s more than six times,” says Mishel. “CEOs now are making 351 times that of a typical worker, but back in 1978, it was only 31 times. In 1989, it was 61 times.”
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it’s just the opposite. – Kenneth Galbraith
“I don’t think there’s much evidence that paying CEOs more gets better performance,” says Mishel. “When you look over this last 40 years, you can see how much profitability increased, you can see how much the stock market rose, and CEO compensation grows far, far more than that — 60%, more than the rise in the stock market.”
We need to reach a stage of maturity in capitalism where these manifestations of personal excess are questioned rather than celebrated, where equitable income distribution is one of the measures of success. – Wayne Visser, author of Beyond Reasonable Greed
GREED KNOWS NO SHAME.