4 ms·

Oligarchy at its best: Aetna/CVS workers mostly making minimum wage and doing all the work while the CEOs earning insane paychecks. Would this guy really be wor

Oligarchy at its best: Aetna/CVS workers mostly making minimum wage and doing all the work while the CEOs earning insane paychecks. Would this guy really be worse off if he only made 50M and the other 450M would go to the employees?

TrainedMonkey 9y ago
$450m would work out to $900 per employee (assuming 50k employees), not bad for a bonus. edit: As commenters below pointed out correct number is $9,000 per employee, which would have made for a pretty awesome Christmas bonus. If we also include CVS employees (240k) the bonus drops to $1,552 which is still pretty good.
- rak00n 9y ago
  CVS alone had over 240k employee in 2016. [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CVS_Pharmacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CVS_Pharmacy
  - Retric 9y ago
    Aetna has ~50,000 people so this is 450m/50k = 9,000$ each for them not exactly nothing. CVS has more workers but they are paid less so 1,900$ means ~1.5 months of pay to someone making 7.25$ an hour before taxes. I don't mean to suggest this is a significant issue on it's own, but high level executive compensation really does add up to a significant cost at large corporations. And really, this is just stock compensation he received other pay and benefits.
- dx034 9y ago
  Think you meant 9,000 per employee in this case.
elvirs 9y ago
would you accept $50 bonus and $1 to each of your 450 covorkers if you were set to receive $500 bonus instead?
- sverhagen 9y ago
  Interesting how that question is phrased. Would you accept $50 (million dollar)? Hell yeah. What would you choose between $50 and $500. Maybe $500, not sure if I could live with myself, but I can see how some people would. But why is $500 even on the table? Why isn't someone (a board, a shareholders' meeting) telling this guy: $50 (million) should be enough.
  - elvirs 9y ago
    because that bonus is based on how much he saved or made for that company. he/she must have saved/made the company at least 3 times as much and was promised the bonus by that same board if he achieves the goal. board does not gift him the bonus, board owes him.
- jdavila90 9y ago
  the fact that you think 50 dollars and 50 million are equivalent...
- cialowicz 9y ago
  That's not really a valid comparison. The real-world difference between $50 and $500 is much greater than the real-world difference between $50,000,000 and $500,000,000. $450 to most of the population is a meaningful amount that could help pay rent/mortgate, buy food, pay for daycare, etc. $450,000,000 to someone who already has $50,000,000 just means stepping up to a megayacht. Perhaps a more apt analogy would be the following: Would you be happy if you Product Manager at work got a bonus of 10,000 times your salary for managing a wildly successful and profitable project to completion when you and your coworkers did most of the grunt work?
southphillyman 9y ago
I'd love to know what the average raise % for rank and file employees was over that time period of success.
Nelkins 9y ago
Do you really think the employees making minimum wage are doing "all the work?" If that's true, this guy did literally nothing. Which I doubt. Anyway, it seems like he's done a decent job of trying to spread the wealth around (no idea if the claims are true, of course). FTA: "He is one of the highest-profile leaders in managed care, known partly for sharing his personal health-care experiences after a severe ski accident years ago, and he is well-regarded by investors. He drew attention outside the industry for boosting the incomes of Aetna’s lowest-paid workers by as much as one-third a few years ago; he asked Aetna executives at the time to read economist Thomas Piketty’s book on wealth inequality."
- purplezooey 9y ago
  At least he is not one of the right wing nutjobs like the guy who built the creationist museum.
  - sctb 9y ago
    Could you please not post this off-topic flamebait on Hacker News? We're pretty hasty to ban accounts that do. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
bfuller 9y ago
So the workers should be paid less if the companies profits fall? edit: feel free to join the conversation silent downvoting cowards
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  They already face the risk of getting laid off.

TrainedMonkey 9y ago

$450m would work out to $900 per employee (assuming 50k employees), not bad for a bonus. edit: As commenters below pointed out correct number is $9,000 per employee, which would have made for a pretty awesome Christmas bonus. If we also include CVS employees (240k) the bonus drops to $1,552 which is still pretty good.

rak00n 9y ago
CVS alone had over 240k employee in 2016. [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CVS_Pharmacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CVS_Pharmacy
- Retric 9y ago
  Aetna has ~50,000 people so this is 450m/50k = 9,000$ each for them not exactly nothing. CVS has more workers but they are paid less so 1,900$ means ~1.5 months of pay to someone making 7.25$ an hour before taxes. I don't mean to suggest this is a significant issue on it's own, but high level executive compensation really does add up to a significant cost at large corporations. And really, this is just stock compensation he received other pay and benefits.
dx034 9y ago
Think you meant 9,000 per employee in this case.

elvirs 9y ago

would you accept $50 bonus and $1 to each of your 450 covorkers if you were set to receive $500 bonus instead?

sverhagen 9y ago
Interesting how that question is phrased. Would you accept $50 (million dollar)? Hell yeah. What would you choose between $50 and $500. Maybe $500, not sure if I could live with myself, but I can see how some people would. But why is $500 even on the table? Why isn't someone (a board, a shareholders' meeting) telling this guy: $50 (million) should be enough.
- elvirs 9y ago
  because that bonus is based on how much he saved or made for that company. he/she must have saved/made the company at least 3 times as much and was promised the bonus by that same board if he achieves the goal. board does not gift him the bonus, board owes him.
jdavila90 9y ago
the fact that you think 50 dollars and 50 million are equivalent...
cialowicz 9y ago
That's not really a valid comparison. The real-world difference between $50 and $500 is much greater than the real-world difference between $50,000,000 and $500,000,000. $450 to most of the population is a meaningful amount that could help pay rent/mortgate, buy food, pay for daycare, etc. $450,000,000 to someone who already has $50,000,000 just means stepping up to a megayacht. Perhaps a more apt analogy would be the following: Would you be happy if you Product Manager at work got a bonus of 10,000 times your salary for managing a wildly successful and profitable project to completion when you and your coworkers did most of the grunt work?

southphillyman 9y ago

I'd love to know what the average raise % for rank and file employees was over that time period of success.

Nelkins 9y ago

Do you really think the employees making minimum wage are doing "all the work?" If that's true, this guy did literally nothing. Which I doubt. Anyway, it seems like he's done a decent job of trying to spread the wealth around (no idea if the claims are true, of course). FTA: "He is one of the highest-profile leaders in managed care, known partly for sharing his personal health-care experiences after a severe ski accident years ago, and he is well-regarded by investors. He drew attention outside the industry for boosting the incomes of Aetna’s lowest-paid workers by as much as one-third a few years ago; he asked Aetna executives at the time to read economist Thomas Piketty’s book on wealth inequality."

purplezooey 9y ago
At least he is not one of the right wing nutjobs like the guy who built the creationist museum.
- sctb 9y ago
  Could you please not post this off-topic flamebait on Hacker News? We're pretty hasty to ban accounts that do. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

bfuller 9y ago

So the workers should be paid less if the companies profits fall? edit: feel free to join the conversation silent downvoting cowards

s73ver_ 9y ago
They already face the risk of getting laid off.