Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
id740990703
In 1965, America’s average CEO to worker pay ratio was 21:1. According to a 2022 analysis conducted by the AFL-CIO, it is now 272:1, with the average wages of CEOs and workers at 61,900 respectively. It’s already pretty hard to make a moral case for inequality on this scale — but, as it turns out, the efficiency and desert arguments for it don’t hold water either.
id740990712
colossal increases in CEO pay are unrelated to improved performance and reflect little more than “a rigged system that extracts wealth from ordinary workers and channels profits to the top of the corporate ladder.” This is immediately evident when you look at the methods used to inflate compensation for the highest-paid executives.
id740990723
stock buybacks allow a company to artificially inflate its own value. In 2021 and 2022, the analysis notes, companies on the S&P 500 spent a record amount on the practice and, since the lion’s share of CEO pay (on average just over 80 percent) now comes in the form of stock options, the upshot is that executives get a massive boost as well.