As reported in The Guardian, a study on the increasing pay gap between CEOs and median workers in America was released today by Democratic US congressman Keith Ellison entitled, “Rewarding or Hoarding?” The study includes data on almost 14 million workers at 225 US companies with total annual revenues of $6.3tn.
A few salient quotes:
In 188 of the 225 companies in the report’s database, a single chief executive’s pay could be used to pay more than 100 workers; the average worker at 219 of the 225 companies studied would need to work at least 45 years to earn what their CEO makes in one.
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“Now we know why CEOs didn’t want this data released,” says Ellison, who championed the implementation of the pay ratio disclosure rule as it was written into the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill of 2010. “I knew inequality was a great problem in our society but I didn’t understand quite how extreme it was.”
45 years — think about that. A whole career (as if those existed) still wouldn’t be enough to earn a single year’s CEO pay. That level of income inequality isn’t just outrageous — it’s criminal. Some places, such as Portland Oregon, are trying to reign the abuse in through taxes and corporate penalties, but much more needs to be done.
Props to Rep. Ellison for getting this info out there. All Dems should be talking about this and fighting to reign in the abuse and create a living wage for all.