'CEOs don't want this released': US study lays bare extreme pay-ratio problem The first comprehensive study of CEO-to-worker pay reveals an extraordinary disparity – with the highest gap approaching 5,000 to 1 The first comprehensive study of the massive pay gap between the US executive suite and average workers has found that the average CEO-to-worker pay ratio has now reached 339 to 1, with the highest gap approaching 5,000 to 1. The study, titled Rewarding Or Hoarding?, was published on Wednesday by Minnesota’s Democratic US congressman Keith Ellison, and includes data on almost 14 million workers at 225 US companies with total annual revenues of $6.3tn. Just the makes for sober reading. 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. It also shows how some of the most extreme disparities in CEO-to-worker pay exist in industries that are considered consumer discretionary, such as fast food and retail, with a 977 to 1 disparity, one of the widest gaps. “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.” The requirements, long resisted by some of the largest US companies, simply tells companies to identify a median worker and then calculate how much the CEO makes in comparison to that person. But the requirement triggered
years of prevarication as companies claimed the method of calculating CEO compensation and median employee compensation had not been well defined. Some claimed that including workers employed abroad, especially in developing countries, would make pay ratio data even more extreme than it would be if calculated only within the US. “If wealth is being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, then obviously wealth is being dissipated from more and more people,” Ellison said. “We have people who are paying more half their income in rent, and we have whole school districts where poverty is erasing any opportunity for Americans to climb that ladder.” Ellison rejected claims from corporate America that executive suite compensation is a just reward for the skillful
exercising of their business talents. “Truth is, they’re doing nothing except extracting value and wealth from hard working people because they have economic advantages.” “With all this extra money they have, it corrupts our politics absolutely,” he continues. “It concentrates markets and makes them less competitive.” Ellison has become a frequent target for criticism from the Trump administration, including from the president himself….Read More Shared from Steve Murphy, Business Agent, RI IBEW 2323. This is being shared to show how corporations can pay executives exorbitant compensation, while holding back increases, health care and pension for employees. They seem to forget, without employees, they have no corporations, therefore, no executive salaries.
Post office blames US government – not Amazon – for billion-dollar loss The U.S. Postal Service placed most of the blame for the $1.3 billion it lost in its second fiscal quarter on “inflexible” government policy, and some of it on inflation and a decline in first-class mail, but it did not blame any of it on delivery deals made with customers, including, notably, Amazon.com Inc. The net loss for the quarter ended March 31 widened from $562 million in the same period a year ago. The “controllable” loss, which excludes items that are not recurring and outside of management’s control, was $656 million, after a profit of $12 million last year. Total revenue rose 1.4% to $17.50 billion, as 9.5% growth in shipping and package revenue and a 15% rise in international revenue helped offset a 2.5%
drop in firstclass mail and a 0.4% decline in marketing mail. First-classmail revenue of $6.46 billion represented 36.9% of total revenue, down from 38.3% last year, while the percentage of shipping and package revenue increased to 29.4% from 27.3%. USPS called the controllable loss primarily a result of a $236 million increase in retiree health-benefits costs because of changes in actuarial assumptions and a $364 million rise in compensation expenses to support its “labor-intensive package business” and contractual wage adjustments. Higher fuel costs and highway-
contract-route inflation lifted transportation expenses by $155 million. In addition to controllable expenses, unfunded retiree benefits and retiree health benefits jumped $766 million because of changes in actuarial assumptions, while workercompensation expenses declined $658 million because of changes in interest rates. USPS said it would take “urgently needed legislative and regulatory changes,” as well as continued management actions, to return to financial stability. “Despite growth in our package business, our financial results reflect systemic trends in the marketplace and the effects
of an inflexible, legislatively mandated business model that limits our ability to generate sufficient revenue and imposes costs upon us that we cannot afford,” said Postmaster General Megan Brennan. That seems to differ from comments made by President Donald Trump last month. Tr ump said the USPS was losing “billions of dollars” because of a “Delivery Boy” deal with Amazon, under which, he said, the post office lost an average of $1.50 on each package delivered for the ecommerce giant. At that time, the post office told MarketWatch it had no comment on the matter. control our costs, the Postal Service can return to financial sustainability.”...Read More
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