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There are 211,230 CEOs with mean annual wage $258,900 [1]. Being the mean surely gives that the median is much lower. There are 120,053,000 age workers with me

There are 211,230 CEOs with mean annual wage $258,900 [1]. Being the mean surely gives that the median is much lower. There are 120,053,000 age workers with median weekly income of $1,159 = $60,258 annual income [2] (and this includes part time, people in college, semi-retired, many people who have had high incomes in the past or will in the future). A story about a 4.3x of CEO to worker pay, which is the actual stats of CEO to worker, doesn't generate enough outrage. Comparing the top 500 (ish) of them to all workers is simply bad analysis designed to rile up people. Surely people here would call out the dishonesty of comparing the top 500 wage worker salaries (many millions/year each) vs all the CEOs (258k) as dishonest. It's funny seeing how many people eat this equally dishonest comparison up as indicative of all CEOs and companies... As to all the theories as to this or that law being some culprit, or some evil intentions, note the pay of the top performers in nearly every category, from musician, to athlete, to lawyer, to top 500 CEO, to even employee, have seen pretty much the same growth over the same time. It's nearly impossible all these are driven by something as specific as a labor law, a union change, a stock market or money format change. It's almost a certainty these are all driven by an excess of accrued capital in the US (and other markets) allowing those paying these incomes to pay for what they see as talent, whether is a huge rise in middle class disposable income, a larger share of US money available for retirement accounts, etc. Many years ago chasing down this exact set of ideas revealed a ton of econ papers reaching the same conclusions.... In short, high (someone else) pay rarely is money taken from the poor, and in more cases the poor and middle get higher wages as the top get higher wages simply by econ effects like the Baumol effect. This is the effect that as some jobs pay more, it attracts more people, so for society to get older jobs done, they must now also pay more, even if productivity in the latter jobs have not increased. It's why the lowest labor in the US pays many, many fold over what you'd get for the same output in most of the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect Just some thoughts.... [1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes111011.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes111011.htm [2] https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat39.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat39.htm

cycomanic 1y ago
Note that this is mean wage not compensation, specifically it does not include stock bonuses [1]. Considering that the high CEO compensation is almost exclusively based on equity (there are several famous cases of CEOs taking only $1 of wage), arguments based on wage are pretty meaningless. Also, I highly suspect that even if we take the ratio of top 1% CEOs compared to top 1% of non-executive employees the picture would not change dramatically (unfortunately I can't find easily accessible information). [1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_ques.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_ques.htm
- SideQuark 1y ago
  Taking the top 1% would certainly lower the gap, which shows had misleading or dishonest this invalid comparison is. Also note mean wage is also not total compensation by a long shot. The actual benefits are tracked by BLS total compensation, or better yet, BLS cost to employ, which has grown a lot of the past few decades. The biggest tax breaks (or as people like to call them when it suits them, tax giveaways or tax loopholes) give more to the poor and middle class than all the tax breaks enjoyed by all companies combined: mortgage deduction, 401k style deferred taxes, and employer healthcare deduction, all give massive breaks the majority of which accrues to the poor and middle, yet this also gets ignored in this discussion. No matter how you want to slice it comparing the top 500 out of 250K to all is simply bad stats, as bas as claiming the top 500 wage employees to all CEOs would show every day earners have a gap over CEOs. And it's simply designed to create outrage - that CEO taking less pay is not going to suddenly accrue to the workers. So no matter how you want to slice it, it's completely bad stats.
  - cycomanic 1y ago
    Nobody is talking about the leader of some charity in the middle of Kansas when saying CEO pay (even though they are technically a CEO). You also ignore the main part of my comment that the majority (~70%) of CEO compensation is stock so not included in wage comparisons. I'm also not sure in what world you live, but the effective tax rates for most of the wealthiest are effectively 0 [1] , compare that to the tax rate of an average wage earner. The final point is that ratio of CEO pay to average salary pay has skyrocketed [2] . How do you explain that away? [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trov... [2] https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2023/ https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2023/

cycomanic 1y ago

Note that this is mean wage not compensation, specifically it does not include stock bonuses [1]. Considering that the high CEO compensation is almost exclusively based on equity (there are several famous cases of CEOs taking only $1 of wage), arguments based on wage are pretty meaningless. Also, I highly suspect that even if we take the ratio of top 1% CEOs compared to top 1% of non-executive employees the picture would not change dramatically (unfortunately I can't find easily accessible information). [1] https://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_ques.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_ques.htm

SideQuark 1y ago
Taking the top 1% would certainly lower the gap, which shows had misleading or dishonest this invalid comparison is. Also note mean wage is also not total compensation by a long shot. The actual benefits are tracked by BLS total compensation, or better yet, BLS cost to employ, which has grown a lot of the past few decades. The biggest tax breaks (or as people like to call them when it suits them, tax giveaways or tax loopholes) give more to the poor and middle class than all the tax breaks enjoyed by all companies combined: mortgage deduction, 401k style deferred taxes, and employer healthcare deduction, all give massive breaks the majority of which accrues to the poor and middle, yet this also gets ignored in this discussion. No matter how you want to slice it comparing the top 500 out of 250K to all is simply bad stats, as bas as claiming the top 500 wage employees to all CEOs would show every day earners have a gap over CEOs. And it's simply designed to create outrage - that CEO taking less pay is not going to suddenly accrue to the workers. So no matter how you want to slice it, it's completely bad stats.
- cycomanic 1y ago
  Nobody is talking about the leader of some charity in the middle of Kansas when saying CEO pay (even though they are technically a CEO). You also ignore the main part of my comment that the majority (~70%) of CEO compensation is stock so not included in wage comparisons. I'm also not sure in what world you live, but the effective tax rates for most of the wealthiest are effectively 0 [1] , compare that to the tax rate of an average wage earner. The final point is that ratio of CEO pay to average salary pay has skyrocketed [2] . How do you explain that away? [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trov... [2] https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2023/ https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2023/