5/13/21 While Workers Got Laid Off, Big Shots Got Bigger Bucks

After reviewing 100 companies' pay practices from last year -- companies that have lots of low-wage workers -- the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies determined that 51 of those companies goosed up executive pay by an average of 31%, while the lower-paid workers got 2% less in compensation.

Magical accounting malleability does complicate the picture. One auto-parts firm, Aptiv, reportedly increased its CEO's pay to $31 million, but a spokesman there said that it looked that way because of an accounting adjustment, and the CEO actually got less than $14 million. On the other hand, the average pay for employees was down 19% for the year, to $5,906. That startlingly low number includes workers who are part time and those who work overseas.

A Bloomberg report says that the "metrics" for CEO pay changed in more than 300 companies in the S&P 500 stock index last year. That meant that execs "as a whole" got huge bonuses that more than compensate for any accounting adjustments. Then, too, executive pay is usually based on the stock market, which seemed immune from COVID19 even as the disease sickened the economy for everyone else.

"When you compensate CEOs based on share prices," an AFL-CIO honcho says, "it incentivizes destructive behavior, but also contributes to economic inequality." IPS simply says the system is rigged.

It's nice to be boss -- especially when the Republicans have your back on tax rates.
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