CEO pay vs average worker pay

Yes, that was my source.

 

Ok. If it's the owners, than I have no problems with the CEOs on them getting paid that much. The problems not their fault (or rather, it's so much deeper that that they're simply the fall-guys/gals for it.)

 

Those graphics are bullshit. If a worker stayed with Walmart for more than 700 years, they would have gotten raises to at least, like, $13.25 an hour by then.

(PS: Don't know how to do blue type)

 

Has the entry of women into the work force driven down wages because there isn't labor scarcity? Why has the gulf illustrated in the graphic grown? I make no value judgment. But it's a curious phenomenon, and I'm interested to cut through the partisanship to why it's happened. Decline of labor unions? Women in the work force? Globalization/outsourcing?

 

I'd think it's all three.

There are more jobs, but more people to fill them. But now there's global competition for those jobs, which drives down salaries. And the jobs that are still here don't always seem conducive to labor unions, such as fast food jobs.

 

When failed CEOs of big corporations end up broke, maybe the high disparity in income between CEOs and most workers can be rationalized.

 

You also have to be careful to not assume that what is depicted in the graphic is wholly accurate. By that I mean the numbers themselves might be correct, but they're not appropriate for the story that's being told. Here is the source for those numbers:

http://www.aflcio.org/Corporate-Watch/CEO-Pay-and-You

If you look in the fine print, you'll see that the CEO "ratio" for 2012 was done by looking at compensation at 327 companies (for which data were available) and comparing that to the average wages for the economy as a whole. Those kinds of apples-and-orangutan conflations can lead to very nice stories that don't necessarily dovetail with reality.

Now, I do not suggest that CEO compensation hasn't increased and worker compensation hasn't remained relatively flat. But I would not be surprised to find that the disparity gap is not nearly as dramatic as it is purported to be.

 

Why would entry of women in the work force drive down wages only at the the bottom but not the top end? Shouldn't that factor also have increased the supply of qualified executive level candidates?

 

You missed the biggest one: Technology.

 

Which has contributed to both ends of the pay disparity.

 

Not yet because women leave the CEO track to have children.

 

Indeed. And the source of many of my most heated recent debates here, frequently with Dooley.

I'd be remiss not to bring up that, of course, the standard of living for those grunt workers has gone up during this time period. Inequality is its own problem, for sure, and some theorize that it eventually impedes growth. But, at the same time, this isn't a zero-sum game.