CEO pay: Most cats not that fat
Published March 1, 2016
Editorial by Orange County Register, published in Jacksonville Daily News, February 29, 2016.
The fat cats just keep getting fatter at our expense, according to a report from As You Sow, an Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit founded in 1992 to promote “environmental and social corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy, coalition building and innovative legal strategies.”
Its report ranked “the 100 most overpaid CEOs of S&P 500 companies,” adding that CEO pay grew 997 percent over 36 years — an astonishing number.
But while some of the largest and most successful U.S. companies pay their top leadership quite handsomely, there are many more CEOs in America that make nowhere near what that handful in the S&P 500 does.
Indeed, a report from the American Enterprise Institute last year suggested that allowing the compensation for a few hundred CEOs of multinational corporations to represent pay for the CEOs at more than 7 million private firms in the U.S. was missing the forest for the trees.
Drawing upon comprehensive data from a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report, AEI found that a more complete analysis of company heads’ compensation revealed nowhere near the same scope and disparity of pay with that of employees. “In 2014, the BLS reports that the average pay for America’s 246,240 chief executives was only $180,700,” wrote AEI’s Mark J. Perry, a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus.
Moreover, “the real CEO-to-worker pay ratio has not been increasing, as is frequently reported, but instead has been remarkably constant over the past 13 years, averaging 3.8-to-1 in a tight range between a maximum of 3.89-to-1 in 2004 and a minimum of 3.69-to-1 in both 2005 and 2006.”
While whether CEOs at major corporations are making too much is best left between them, their boards of directors and shareholders. It just could be that America’s CEOs are getting a bad rap.
— The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.)
http://www.jdnews.com/opinion/20160229/ceo-pay-most-cats-not-that-fat
March 2, 2016 at 9:50 am
Norm Kelly says:
Doesn't have to be true, just so long as it makes a good sound bite for the socialist pols. You know, the Bernies & Billarys among us. Those who run for political office based solely on their ability to pit groups of people against each other, love to use false information to stir up their base. You know, the Bernies & Bilalrys among us. It makes for a good talking point if some pol can tell people that they are being ripped off by a wealthy minority, causing strife among families who deserve better. You know, the Bernies & Billarys among us.
Take away vilifying 'the wealthy', what do lib pols have?
Take away demonizing 'the hated groups', what do lib pols have?
Add in a little truth, where do lib pols hide?
Which lib pol has come up with any new ideas? Heck, that doesn't even have to be a plural 'ideas'; it's hard enough for anyone to point out a new 'idea' from a lib pol. Even in our own state, the lib running for Gov - Roy - wants to take us back to the failed schemes of the demon past. Tax 'the rich'. Provide more government payments to 'the poor'. Pander to black people. Pander to gay people. Restrict school choice. What's new?
Just because the facts about overpaid CEOs is available, don't expect any lib pol to change their rants.
Just because the facts are available about Republicans in the legislature increasing teacher pay, while it was demons who last ACTUALLY CUT teacher pay, don't expect any lib pol to change their whine. And no one should expect the Noise & Disturber to change their evaluation of teacher compensation based on the myth of national comparisons that take no useful information into account - the N&D will continue to mislead as many people as they can about teacher compensation. Simply comparing pay without considering benefits, cost of living, environment, etc., is totally useless but serves the lib low-information types well. Total disclosure defeats lib whines every time!
