Last week, the New York Times reported that Hillary Clinton sought the advice of more than 200 experts on how to solve the problem of income inequality. After all that advice, her solution to the is to express her outrage over CEO pay.
Rather than come up with any ideas that would give 156 million workers better pay by creating better jobs, her solution is to somehow reduce the salaries of the roughly 19,000 CEO's who head up publicly traded corporations and who are paid, on average, $153,000 a year. In expressing her outrage she claims that the average CEO is paid 300 times what the average worker is paid. Well, try dividing $153,000 by 300 and you get a average of $510 a year.
The fact is, that Hillary, once again, is distorting the facts. Her "300 times" claim is based on a published work of a liberal think tank called the Economic Policy Institute. Their claim is that the top 350 CEO's make an average of $15.2 million in annual compensation (salary and benefits, incentives, and forward stock options). So, were supposed to be angry at every CEO in America because 350 make more than what Hillary and a bunch of other liberals think they should.
But, one has to wonder why that liberal study only looked at the top 350 and not the top 400 or, even the top 500 CEO's. Well, the reason is that the top 350 are the exception and not the rule. For example, Mary Barra, the head of General Motors, received $4.4 million in total compensation (salary and incentives) last year. Apple's CEO got paid $4.2 million. The new head of Ford just received a compensation package of $5.25 million.
But, where is Hillary's outrage over the insane salaries in Hollywood where the top stars make between 20 and 30 million dollars per movie. Or, the NBA where the average basketball player is paid $5.5 million. And, what about her own salary? Since leaving the State Department, she has average 3/4 of million dollars in income per month. That's $9 million a year, or the equivalent of the combined incomes of the CEO's of General Motors and Apple Computer.
We are in a country where the working class is hurting. The middle class makes less now than they did in 2010 at the height of post-recession unemployment. Instead of spending time talking to a bunch of liberal economists and academics on how to fix the inequality problem, maybe she should spend time with the CEO's who are real job creators; and, stop bashing them about their salaries. If she's going to be outraged about incomes, Hillary should try looking in the mirror before she lectures anyone else.
References:
New York Times: With advice from more than 200 policy experts, Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to answer what has emerged as a central question of her early presidential campaign strategy: how to address the anger about income inequality without overly vilifying the wealthy: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/us/politics/economic-plan-is-a-quandary-for-hillary-clintons-campaign.html?_r=1
Hillary Clinton surprises with early attack on CEO pay: http://news.yahoo.com/hillary-clinton-surprises-early-attack-ceo-pay-190527044--finance.html
Average CEO Pay in America: http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Chief_Executive_Officer_%28CEO%29/Salary
Number of Publicly Traded Corporations in U.S.: https://www.google.com/search?q=publicaly+traded+corporations&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#safe=off&q=number+of+publicly+traded+companies&revid=1307038320
Economic Policy Institute: CEO Pay Continues to Rise as Typical Workers Are Paid Less: http://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-continues-to-rise/
Since exiting the Obama administration in February 2013, she has raked in an estimated $750,000 per month with her nonstop speaking appearances and the advance for her new book, according to an analysis by Bloomberg: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/hillary-clinton-brought-12-million-16-months-leaving-state-department-article-1.1874339
Mary Barra Salary: https://www.google.com/search?q=mary+barra+salary&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
The New Ford CEO Pay: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/07/02/ford-ceo-mark-fields-pay/12085859/
Apple CEO Pay: https://www.google.com/search?q=Apple+CEO+pay&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Average NBA Pay: https://www.google.com/search?q=average+nba+salary&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
List of highest paid film actors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_paid_film_actors
Real Median Household Incomes: https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MEHOINUSA672N
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