The Economic Policy Institute is out with its annual look at CEO pay, and by two measures, the pay of CEOs at the nation’s 350 largest companies is nauseating: 271 times what the typical worker made. Though that ratio is down from its peak, consider that in 1989, the ratio was 59 to one. That means we’re talking about a shift that happened during the lives of Millennials.
- Using the stock-options-realized measure, the average CEO compensation for CEOs in the 350 largest U.S. firms was $15.6 million in 2016. Compensation in 2016 (data available through May) is down 4.3 percent (from $16.3 million) since 2015 but up 45.6 percent (from $10.7 million) since the recovery began in 2009. The fall in average compensation reflected a loss for the highest-paid CEOs while those in the bottom 80 percent earned more in 2016 than in 2015.
- Using the stock-options-granted measure, the average CEO compensation for CEOs in the 350 largest U.S. firms was $13.0 million in 2016, up 3.8 percent from $12.5 million in 2015.
- From 1978 to 2016, inflation-adjusted compensation, based on realized stock options, of the top CEOs increased 937 percent, a rise more than 70 percent greater than stock market growth and substantially greater than the painfully slow 11.2 percent growth in a typical worker’s annual compensation over the same period. CEO compensation, when measured using the value of stock options granted, grew more slowly from 1978 to 2016, rising 807 percent—a still-substantial increase relative to every benchmark available.
- Using the stock-options-realized measure, the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio was 20-to-1 in 1965, peaked at 376-to-1 in 2000, and was 271-to-1 in 2016—down from 286-to-1 in 2015 but still far higher than at any point in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s. Using the stock-options-granted measure, the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio rose to 224-to-1 in 2016 (from 220-to-1 in 2015), significantly down from its peak of 411-to-1 in 2000 but still much higher than the 54-to-1 ratio of 1989 or the 18-to-1 ratio of 1965.
● Jane McAlevey writes that this Massachusetts nurses’ union is reviving the strike:
The central issue in the Tufts dispute—nurses’ being asked to work way too hard with far too few staff, leading to unsafe conditions, incredible stress, and burn out—is at the root of just about every health-care dispute in this country, if not every workplace in America. Also at issue in the Tufts strike is the gender pay gap, particularly the retirement gender gap, with a CEO who earns in excess of $1 million demanding an end to the female workforce’s pension plan.
According to Julie Pinkham, a registered nurse and the executive director of the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), what “led to this strike is the arrogance and ignorance of the employer. They seem to think the union is a suggestion box they can ignore. [Management is] a male institution thinking they can snub 1,200 women and pretend their opinions about health care don’t count.”
● Young workers face a tougher labor market even as the economy inches towards full employment.
● As cities raise minimum wages, many states are rolling them back. Because that’s how Republicans do.
● Sad news:
Betty Dukes, a Walmart worker who led a class-action lawsuit accusing the company of discriminating against female employees — a landmark case that went all the way to United States Supreme Court — died on July 10 at her home in Antioch, Calif. She was 67.
● Betsy DeVos decided to get in a Twitter fight about privatizing education with the American Federation of Teachers.
● Workers Independent News: