Average CEO $155,769 a Week , Average Worker Takes Home $517

[G_j]

http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0414-10.htm

CEO Pay/Worker Pay Ratio Reaches 301-to-1
Average Worker Takes Home $517 a Week; Average CEO $155,769 a Week

BOSTON - April 14 - After declining for the last two years, the gap in pay between average workers and large company CEOs surpassed 300-to-1 in 2003. In 2002, the ratio stood at 282-to-1. In 1982, it was just 42-to-1.
According to Business Week's 54th Annual Executive Compensation Survey, published this week, the average large company CEO received compensation totaling $8.1 million in 2003, up 9.1% from the previous year. Business Week's survey covers the 365 largest companies that have reported their executive pay to date.

From 1990 to 2003:
CEO pay rose 313%
The S&P 500 rose 242%
Corporate profits rose 128%
Average worker pay rose 49%
Inflation rose 41%

The average production worker fared less well in 2003. Their annual pay was $26,899 in 2003, up just 2.1% from 2002 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average worker took home $517 in their weekly paycheck in 2003; the average large company CEO took home $155,769 in their weekly pay.

If the minimum wage had increased as quickly as CEO pay since 1990, it would today be $15.71 per hour, more than three times the current minimum wage of $5.15 an hour.

..more..

[redqueen]

1. Lovely post

It's interesting to me that unions and high worker pay are decried as evils unmatched by anything since the red menace and used to justify outsourcing US jobs that keep our economy afloat with their good salaries -- but re: unjustifiable CEO compensation, we hear nary a peep. Such short-term capitalist thinking will be the end of the US.

Thank goodness for Costco!

[Deja Q]

2. The amount of work workers worked went up 200% too...

Remember, the CEO's big bonuses started when Reagan took hold.

Since then it's been getting worse for the average worker.

Also note, the statistics of the last 24 years don't go the opposite direction between 1992 and 2000...

Worst of all, in order to even LIVE, you need to make ~$12 per hour.

Who can sleep when they need 2.5 jobs to frigging stay alive?

[G_j]

11. "in order to even LIVE, you need to make ~$12 per hour."

and that is more than double the min. wage of $5.15. I guess some people aren't really supposed to be able to 'live'.

[Kanary]

16. No, they're not supposed to be able to live

And, heaven forbid we actually provide them with universal medical care!

Storm the barricades.........

Kanary

[JanMichael]

3. Workers/Unions are a "Special Interest". Corporations/CEOs aren't.

"Special Interests" are "Bad".

Ie. "Workers/Unions are Bad"

At least that's how our "advanced" culture/society sees it...

[JohnKleeb]

4. and they wonder why people become socialists

I feel like :puke: puking btw dont mind me, class warfare is much alive in this country. As one of the most wisest men Ive ever met told me, its all about green, damn grandpa at 75 you still have it and are right.

[JanMichael]

7. Too bad only one side is fighting the Class War.

It's the side that owns (As in the content, not the actual box...) those idiot boxes in every house, bar, etcetera, in Amerika.

What's that saying about Religion being the opiate of the People? TV is the mainlined Heroin.

[JohnKleeb]

8. I like my TV fine but youre right

:hi: I hear you and Stef are going to the choice rally next sunday, I am gonna be there, Ive always liked ya two. Its a shame man, it really is, the inequality of wealth in this country, I was watching a movie today in history lol a disney movie called Newsies, and it was about the newspaper boys starting a union and stuff, and Pulitizer all he cared about was power. I personally agree with my grandpa, that its all about greed.

[JanMichael]

9. We'll see you there then!

The almighty dollar...It's a cultural sickness, exists most places, but rules the roost here.

[citizen snips]

5. Most of them want more $$$

So they cut their employees salary so they can get more for themselves. These creeps aren't CEO's they are criminals.

[thebaghwan]

6. Eat The Rich

n/t

[G_j]

10. wanna get more pissed off?

read this.. <snip>
..a person who derives millions of dollars in dividend income solely from his investments now pays a marginal tax rate of just 15 percent. Compare that with a schoolteacher with an adjusted gross income over $28,400 who pays a payroll tax rate of 15.3 percent, plus a marginal income tax rate of 28 percent, for a total marginal rate of more than 43 percent! <snip>


http://tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10222

Shell Game


Chuck Collins is program director at United for a Fair Economy and co-author, with Bill Gates Sr., of Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes (Beacon, 2003).

----
<snip>
Tax Shift #1: From Federal Taxes to State Taxes. Since 2002, state governments have closed $200 billion in budget gaps by raising taxes and cutting services. During those same years, newly enacted federal tax cuts delivered about as much money—$197.3 billion—in new tax breaks for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans (households making more than $337,000 a year). In essence, Bush chose to force tax hikes in the states in order to give tax breaks to multi-millionaires.

Tax Shift #2: From Progressive to Regressive Taxes. President Bush has focused on reducing income tax rates. But 71 percent of us pay more in payroll taxes (Social Security and Medicare) than in income taxes. Payroll taxes are regressive: high-income people pay a lower tax rate than low-income people. The opposite is true of progressive taxes, such as federal income, corporate and estate taxes. Since the early '60s, this trio of progressive tax rates has dropped precipitously. But the regressive payroll tax rate has risen.

Tax Shift #3: From Taxes on Wealth to Taxes on Work. Politicians talk about the virtues of hard work, but their tax policies speak otherwise. Between 1980 and today, the main tax rate on work income—the payroll tax—has jumped 25 percent. In the same period, top tax rates on investment income and large inheritances have been cut between 31 and 79 percent.

This tax shift from wealth to work means that a person who derives millions of dollars in dividend income solely from his investments now pays a marginal tax rate of just 15 percent. Compare that with a schoolteacher with an adjusted gross income over $28,400 who pays a payroll tax rate of 15.3 percent, plus a marginal income tax rate of 28 percent, for a total marginal rate of more than 43 percent!

Tax Shift #4: From Corporations to Individuals...........
...more...
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Free Riders
by Lee Drutman
When coporations dodge taxes, the rest of us pick up the difference.
http://tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10220
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[JanMichael]

15. Not that I *could* be more apoplectic but...

:kick:

[G_j]

17. I know what you mean

apoplectic is a good way to put it.

[G_j]

12. kick

[NightTrain]

13. I *wish* I took home $517 a week!

n/t

[G_j]

14. me too

$500 a week is $12.50 an hr. I used to make about that, but now I'm unemployed...