Okay, NOW I am angry! What I just read is raising my blood pressure and is also raising a desire within me to be a part of and witness a good old-fashioned worker revolt!
According to The Institute for Policy Studies’ 14th Annual Executive Compensation Survey, the average Chief Executive Officer (CEO) earns more in one working day than the average worker does in an entire year. Excuse me, but WHAT THE SHIT IS THIS?!?!?
The survey states the following facts:
1) CEOs averaged $10.8 million in total compensation, over 364 times the pay of the average American worker
2) The private equity boom has pushed the pay ceiling for American business leaders considerably further into the economic stratosphere. The top 20 private equity and hedge fund managers, Forbes magazine estimates, pocketed an average $657.5 million(and yes, that is per person), or 22,255 times the pay of an average
3) CEOs at major American corporations enjoyed, on average, $1.3 million in pension gains last year. By contrast, only 58.5 percent of American households led by a 45-to-54-year old even had a retirement account in 2004, the most recent year with data. Between 2001 and 2004, the retirement accounts of these average households gained only $3,775 in value per year.
4) CEOs of S&P 500 companies, according to Corporate Library data, retire with an average $10.1 million in their Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan, just one type of special account large American companies routinely set up for their top executives. But most Americans now move into their retirement years with no pension protection whatsoever. In 2004, only 36.3 percent of American households headed by an individual 65 or older held any type of retirement account. The accounts that did exist, on a per household basis, averaged only $173,552 in value, a minuscule 1.7 percent of the dollars in the supplemental accounts set aside for
5) The top 386 CEOs took in perks worth an average $438,342 in 2006. These perks ranged from using private company jets for personal travel to reimbursements for country club fees, commuter expenses, and even the extra taxes due on bonus income. A minimum wage worker would need to work for 36 years to earn the equivalent of what CEOs averaged just in perks last year.
These facts bother me a great deal, as I am certain that they would most people with any sense. The fact that these people are being paid this kind of money while a person who works 40+ hours per week and still has a hard time paying his or her rent is beyond any sort of justification. Honestly, I do not know what is more disturbing, the fact that these conditions exist or the fact that we accept that they exist without resistance.
Put this into perspective. A person who went to college for business is going to earn an average of $10.8 million per year. A surgical staff nurse, who will most likely have gone through an equal amount of training and schooling as the CEO, can only expect to earn $68,398 per year. This seems a bit lopsided to me. Worse than this is the fact that CEOs earn more in perks than the average American worker earns in salary.
The average CEO gets the perk of “commuter expenses” while I can’t even get a partial gas allowance for my 28-mile trek each way to and from work. Some of these CEOs get their country club expenses reimbursed, while I can’t get a clothing allowance for the type of clothing that I am required to wear (and subsequently destroy) for my job. Some of them get to use the private company jets for personal travel, while I am expected to pay for my own hotel up front with my own credit card if I am required to travel for my job. It just doesn’t seem fair. The funny thing about these perks is that they are compensation that is over and above their normal compensation, so their normal living expenses are effectively provided by the company for which they work. The machine operator in a manufacturing plant doesn’t even get an allowance for day care expenses while they slave away for $10 per hour. How sickening is that?
I have long thought that the less physically demanding one’s job was the more money one would earn. This study simply reaffirms that notion. What I find to be the most disgusting of all is the argument against raising the minimum wage. Corporation claim that raising the minimum wage would hurt American corporate productivity. That’s interesting, because if the statistics are correct and the CEO is being paid an average of 45% more now than 10 years ago, would it not make sense to adjust the CEOs salary to a comparable rate of growth as the people who produce the goods or services that the company markets? For instance, Alan Mulally of Ford Motor Company received a total compensation of over $39 million in 2006. Strangely, Ford currently plans to close 14 manufacturing plants and eliminate 30,000 jobs over the next 6 years (as of 2006). It doesn’t sound to me like this man is earning his keep. Why not fire him and hire someone that will do the job for $1 million and put the remaining $38 million into general labor costs. The same could (and should) be done across the corporate spectrum so that the average worker can earn enough money to live on.
What Americans do not seem to grasp is that one does not need a 6 bedroom, 6 bathroom home for 4 people. One does not need a $60,000 vehicle when a $30,000 vehicle will suffice. One does not need to own 6000 acres of land when 10 will do just fine. One does not need a 60-inch television to watch from 20 feet away when a 42-inch will do. One does not need to eat at a restaurant that costs $100 per plate when a restaurant that costs $25 per plate will quell your hunger just as well and probably tastes better anyway.
I’m going to go and put my shackles back on now.
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