SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
William the Conqueror pillaged and plundered to become one of the 20 wealthiest human beings in history. In modern times, bonus-chasing CEOs have followed suit. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
William the Conqueror and CEO pay
In 2018, fifty publicly traded U.S. corporations paid their CEOs more than 1,000 times what they paid their median workers.
Nov 04, 2019
The next time you go to the movies, remember the Norman conquest of 1066.
That's when William the Conqueror crossed over the English Channel from Normandy and defeated the last Anglo-Saxon king, changing the course of world history. Back then, the feudal system was in full swing, with medieval peasants toiling while lords and ladies lived in sumptuous luxury. It was a time, in some ways, not unlike our own.
A recent report that I co-wrote for the Institute for Policy Studies found 50 publicly traded U.S. corporations that paid their CEOs more than 1,000 times what they paid their median workers in 2018.
Need some perspective for that? Try this: If some lord in 1066 had collected 1,000 times the earnings of his peasants, those poor unfortunates would still be working today -- 953 years later -- to make as much as their lord pocketed in a single year.
The folks who take your ticket at the movies could relate to that.
Adam Aron, the CEO of movie theater chain AMC Entertainment, last year took home nearly 1,013 times more than the typical AMC employee, our report found. Ticket takers and popcorn poppers at AMC would have to work more than an entire millennium to earn what Aron grabbed in 2018 alone.
Some 49 major U.S. companies sported even wider divides. At the appropriately named Gap, for instance, CEO Art Peck walked off with 3,566 times as much as his typical worker.
No other nation lavishes this kind of compensation on corporate executives. In Japan, for instance, top executives average just 11 percent of what their U.S. counterparts enjoy.
And the more CEOs get, the more they want, and the more recklessly they behave to get it.
We don't have to tolerate this medieval-style reward system. Through public policy, we can encourage corporations to share the wealth that their employees create.
William the Conqueror pillaged and plundered vast territories to become one of the 20 wealthiest human beings in history. In modern times, bonus-chasing CEOs have followed suit. To fatten their own paychecks, they've boosted short-term stock values by any means necessary, from cooking the books to inflating the housing bubble to flooding poor communities with opioids.
We don't have to tolerate this medieval-style reward system. Through public policy, we can encourage corporations to share the wealth that their employees create.
The city of Portland, Oregon took a precedent-setting step in that direction last year, when it began taxing corporations that pay their CEOs more than 100 times what they pay their median workers.
San Francisco voters will find a similar proposal on their March 2020 ballots, and legislators in seven states are also considering it. More recently, Senator Bernie Sanders proposed a sweeping CEO-worker pay ratio tax plan for the federal level.
We can go even further. We can give companies with modest CEO-worker pay gaps a leg up in the procurement process that decides who gets government contracts. Federal contractors take in half a trillion a year in tax dollars, so this would be significant leverage.
Meanwhile, billions of taxpayer subsidies flow into corporate coffers. More than 1,000 local, state and federal corporate subsidy programs dot the American economic landscape, with the 50 largest subsidy deals adding up to $66.4 billion as of August 2019. We should deny this taxpayer-funded generosity to companies with unconscionable pay gaps.
No one should have to labor a thousand years--or even a century--to make what their top bosses make in 12 months. By linking corporate tax rates, taxpayer subsidies, and government contracts to CEO-worker pay ratios, we could help make medieval pay practices something you only see in the movies.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
© 2023 The Progressive
Sam Pizzigati
Sam Pizzigati, veteran labor journalist and Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow, edits Inequality.org. His recent books include: The Case for a Maximum Wage (2018) and The Rich Don't Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph over Plutocracy that Created the American Middle Class, 1900-1970 (2012).
The next time you go to the movies, remember the Norman conquest of 1066.
That's when William the Conqueror crossed over the English Channel from Normandy and defeated the last Anglo-Saxon king, changing the course of world history. Back then, the feudal system was in full swing, with medieval peasants toiling while lords and ladies lived in sumptuous luxury. It was a time, in some ways, not unlike our own.
A recent report that I co-wrote for the Institute for Policy Studies found 50 publicly traded U.S. corporations that paid their CEOs more than 1,000 times what they paid their median workers in 2018.
Need some perspective for that? Try this: If some lord in 1066 had collected 1,000 times the earnings of his peasants, those poor unfortunates would still be working today -- 953 years later -- to make as much as their lord pocketed in a single year.
The folks who take your ticket at the movies could relate to that.
Adam Aron, the CEO of movie theater chain AMC Entertainment, last year took home nearly 1,013 times more than the typical AMC employee, our report found. Ticket takers and popcorn poppers at AMC would have to work more than an entire millennium to earn what Aron grabbed in 2018 alone.
Some 49 major U.S. companies sported even wider divides. At the appropriately named Gap, for instance, CEO Art Peck walked off with 3,566 times as much as his typical worker.
No other nation lavishes this kind of compensation on corporate executives. In Japan, for instance, top executives average just 11 percent of what their U.S. counterparts enjoy.
And the more CEOs get, the more they want, and the more recklessly they behave to get it.
We don't have to tolerate this medieval-style reward system. Through public policy, we can encourage corporations to share the wealth that their employees create.
William the Conqueror pillaged and plundered vast territories to become one of the 20 wealthiest human beings in history. In modern times, bonus-chasing CEOs have followed suit. To fatten their own paychecks, they've boosted short-term stock values by any means necessary, from cooking the books to inflating the housing bubble to flooding poor communities with opioids.
We don't have to tolerate this medieval-style reward system. Through public policy, we can encourage corporations to share the wealth that their employees create.
The city of Portland, Oregon took a precedent-setting step in that direction last year, when it began taxing corporations that pay their CEOs more than 100 times what they pay their median workers.
San Francisco voters will find a similar proposal on their March 2020 ballots, and legislators in seven states are also considering it. More recently, Senator Bernie Sanders proposed a sweeping CEO-worker pay ratio tax plan for the federal level.
We can go even further. We can give companies with modest CEO-worker pay gaps a leg up in the procurement process that decides who gets government contracts. Federal contractors take in half a trillion a year in tax dollars, so this would be significant leverage.
Meanwhile, billions of taxpayer subsidies flow into corporate coffers. More than 1,000 local, state and federal corporate subsidy programs dot the American economic landscape, with the 50 largest subsidy deals adding up to $66.4 billion as of August 2019. We should deny this taxpayer-funded generosity to companies with unconscionable pay gaps.
No one should have to labor a thousand years--or even a century--to make what their top bosses make in 12 months. By linking corporate tax rates, taxpayer subsidies, and government contracts to CEO-worker pay ratios, we could help make medieval pay practices something you only see in the movies.
Sam Pizzigati
Sam Pizzigati, veteran labor journalist and Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow, edits Inequality.org. His recent books include: The Case for a Maximum Wage (2018) and The Rich Don't Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph over Plutocracy that Created the American Middle Class, 1900-1970 (2012).
The next time you go to the movies, remember the Norman conquest of 1066.
That's when William the Conqueror crossed over the English Channel from Normandy and defeated the last Anglo-Saxon king, changing the course of world history. Back then, the feudal system was in full swing, with medieval peasants toiling while lords and ladies lived in sumptuous luxury. It was a time, in some ways, not unlike our own.
A recent report that I co-wrote for the Institute for Policy Studies found 50 publicly traded U.S. corporations that paid their CEOs more than 1,000 times what they paid their median workers in 2018.
Need some perspective for that? Try this: If some lord in 1066 had collected 1,000 times the earnings of his peasants, those poor unfortunates would still be working today -- 953 years later -- to make as much as their lord pocketed in a single year.
The folks who take your ticket at the movies could relate to that.
Adam Aron, the CEO of movie theater chain AMC Entertainment, last year took home nearly 1,013 times more than the typical AMC employee, our report found. Ticket takers and popcorn poppers at AMC would have to work more than an entire millennium to earn what Aron grabbed in 2018 alone.
Some 49 major U.S. companies sported even wider divides. At the appropriately named Gap, for instance, CEO Art Peck walked off with 3,566 times as much as his typical worker.
No other nation lavishes this kind of compensation on corporate executives. In Japan, for instance, top executives average just 11 percent of what their U.S. counterparts enjoy.
And the more CEOs get, the more they want, and the more recklessly they behave to get it.
We don't have to tolerate this medieval-style reward system. Through public policy, we can encourage corporations to share the wealth that their employees create.
William the Conqueror pillaged and plundered vast territories to become one of the 20 wealthiest human beings in history. In modern times, bonus-chasing CEOs have followed suit. To fatten their own paychecks, they've boosted short-term stock values by any means necessary, from cooking the books to inflating the housing bubble to flooding poor communities with opioids.
We don't have to tolerate this medieval-style reward system. Through public policy, we can encourage corporations to share the wealth that their employees create.
The city of Portland, Oregon took a precedent-setting step in that direction last year, when it began taxing corporations that pay their CEOs more than 100 times what they pay their median workers.
San Francisco voters will find a similar proposal on their March 2020 ballots, and legislators in seven states are also considering it. More recently, Senator Bernie Sanders proposed a sweeping CEO-worker pay ratio tax plan for the federal level.
We can go even further. We can give companies with modest CEO-worker pay gaps a leg up in the procurement process that decides who gets government contracts. Federal contractors take in half a trillion a year in tax dollars, so this would be significant leverage.
Meanwhile, billions of taxpayer subsidies flow into corporate coffers. More than 1,000 local, state and federal corporate subsidy programs dot the American economic landscape, with the 50 largest subsidy deals adding up to $66.4 billion as of August 2019. We should deny this taxpayer-funded generosity to companies with unconscionable pay gaps.
No one should have to labor a thousand years--or even a century--to make what their top bosses make in 12 months. By linking corporate tax rates, taxpayer subsidies, and government contracts to CEO-worker pay ratios, we could help make medieval pay practices something you only see in the movies.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.