Now for the problem: In the lowest paid non-agricultural field of work, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, is the "Leisure and Hospitality" industry. The average weekly worker pay there in September 2011 was $343.95 dollars. Using the table above, what is the average weekly pay for a CEO in the Leisure and Hospitality industry?
If you said $163,376.25 a week, you get an A+ and a feeling of seething anger at the inequality (assuming you're not a deluded conservative). But, okay, let's say that is a worst case scenario. Let me switch charts:
From AFL-CIO:
Now, let's try this problem using the same $343.95 dollar base, shall we? If your second answer is $117,974.85 a week for the CEO, you get another A+, a gold star and a handful of Goldfish crackers that you're probably too poor to afford.
I remember hearing somewhere that there is actually a law in Japan preventing any worker in a company from being paid more than 15 times what the lowest-paid workers in that company earn. If that's true, perhaps it's time for such a law to reach the United States? After all, if the law includes a ratio like that, we wouldn't have to adjust it for inflation.
ReplyDeleteIt would force CEOs to not get too greedy. You want that million-dollar bonus? Well, better increase ALL your workers' salary this year by about $67,000, then! What's that? You can't afford to do that or your company will go bankrupt? Well, guess you'll have to do without that second yacht, won't you?