CEO to Worker Pay Ratios for S&P 500 Companies

Since recent events, every post like this seems to me like a most-wanted list.
- Yes, I'm also pleased with the tenor of the times.
- It is just information…
- Has been for a long time.
- You're a pretty smart person then lol

This isn't a useful metric as it's obviously bad for retail and service industries, and good for tech simply because of their business models. The median wages are really high when you outsource most of your labor and your actual "employees" are a handful of high level engineers. Spectrum for insurance is scummy but you can't just hire people in China to do service calls or upkeep infrastructure, ya know?
Also it doesn't include ownership. 1:1 with AirBnb is misleading for instance as it's probably mostly their execs on the team and their compensation is in stake at the company. Their business model also counts everyone as contractors, so there's that too.
- Even in "traditional" Industries it's iffy.
  If you outsource all your cleaning personnel, who have low paying jobs, you decrease the multiplier, even though nothing actually changed for the better.
- Not to mention that the people doing most of the real labour to get e.g. clothes made and into shops work in sweatshops in poor countries and earn a tiny fraction of these salaries

~~Don't suppose you have more pixels for this image?~~
Never mind, my Lemmy app is being weird.
- I don't see the image at all on Jerboa lol
  Even going directly to the URL at https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/29140d91-0b42-42b1-9092-4a4c6e59dbe6.png in a clean browser session off a different IP, I get 429 - Too Many Requests in this JSON:
  {"code":"object-request-error","msg":"Invalid status 429 Too Many Requests for Some(\"01/93/a1/c7/6a/8f/7c/d9/b9/a4/352f309d98f9.png\") - {\n \"message\":\"Too many requests\"\n}"}
  Rare instance moment.
- If you're using sync, you wanna open a post before clicking to load the pic so you don't get a lower quality version that's for thumbnail purposes.
  
  I am using Voyager
- Thank you. It’s blurry as hell on voyager.
- Boost also hates this image
- Alphabet 29:1? Is this Google or is there also some other company called Alphabet?
  
  Yes but note the median pay is 300k. Most of the high ratios are retail and most of the low ratios are tech because of labor pay, not CEO. That said, Alphabet must be specific to an exec branch because there's no way the median is 300k counting all the outsourced labor they likely rely on (like to make Pixel phones).

The ratio between lowest paid and highest paid employee, in all forms of payment and benefits, to all employees (including contractors), should be capped. I'm thinking a ratio somewhere around 1:5 or so.
Have an employee paid only 20k per year? Congrats on your 100k salary Mr. CEO.
- Agreed. Btw it is “paid”. “Payed” is a different word entirely. English is weird.
  
  Fuck English, but I fixed my comment
- to all employees (including contractors)
  Might aswell just make it a multiple of the minimum wage, because somewhere in the chain there will always be someone scrubbing toilets earning next to nothing. Or you end up incentivizing complex structures that try to avoid this cap somehow.
  That said i don't think this is the right solution anyways, since it only targets income and not wealth. As long as profit gets made it has to end up somewhere. And i feel like it is much more likely to end up in the owners pockets, than resulting in higher wages. It's similar to how the salaries of successful actors/athletes are obscene, but the alternative would be that the studio/club just makes more profit.
  So the more important issue would be to improve mechanisms that redistribute money, from whereever large amounts of wealth accumulate. Like a wealth tax or higher inheritance taxes (or just closing all loopholes that help avoid/reduce it).
  However i would definitely also support a higher maximum taxation rate for the super high earners.
  
  Or you end up incentivizing complex structures that try to avoid this cap somehow.
  They already do that with hiring employees as contractors, which is why I mentioned it. Any employee they hire gets counted.
  That said i don’t think this is the right solution anyways, since it only targets income and not wealth.
  Hence why I said payment in any form. That includes benefits, PTO, stocks, everything. The rich still have other shenanigans they pull, sure. But this would at least solve the problem on a salary level.
  And i feel like it is much more likely to end up in the owners pockets, than resulting in higher wages.
  Agreed, which is why the stock market needs to end. It's the primary means by which they rob the working class.
  So the more important issue would be to improve mechanisms that redistribute money, from whereever large amounts of wealth accumulate. Like a wealth tax or higher inheritance taxes (or just closing all loopholes that help avoid/reduce it).
  I'd recommend looking into a land value tax system.
- The government could incentivize this by a tax formula. Highest paid employee divided by lowest paid employee sets the payroll tax rate for the whole business.
  
  Nah, companies found in violation of this should have their business licenses revoked, and the company dissolved.
  They don't give a shit about taxes or fines. They will care about the company ceasing to exist.
  
  They could, but a lot of idiot children decided not to support the party that would have done that because unnamed randos on the interwebs told them not to. So that's not going to happen. Again.
- I think 5 is maybe an over-ambitious goal.
  I don't really mind a 50:1 cap, or even a 100:1 cap. I can understand how experienced leadership of a large scale multinational corporation should be compensated more than 5x the amount of a 16 year old part time cashier in a town of 2200 people.
  Even think about it from an age demographic/experience point of view. How much more should someone make doing the same job for 40 years than the new hire with no experience? In a lot of fields, I don't feel like it would be unfair for that scale to go 4:1. Now factor that into the consideration of the varying different positions, the ratio has got to be higher.
  And in the face of abhorrent 2100:1 ratios, I think a 100:1 ratio is low enough to make a meaningful difference and high enough that no one can sensibly argue against it.
  
  I think 5 is maybe an over-ambitious goal.
  Maybe, but I'm OK with being ambitious.
  I can understand how experienced leadership of a large scale multinational corporation should be compensated more than 5x the amount of a 16 year old part time cashier in a town of 2200 people.
  I can't. Large scale multination corporations shouldn't exist. But that's a separate issue ultimately.
  How much more should someone make doing the same job for 40 years than the new hire with no experience? In a lot of fields, I don’t feel like it would be unfair for that scale to go 4:1.
  A company hiring somebody with 40 years of experience should be paying towards the higher end of the 1:5 ratio. It would ensure far more of the wealth goes to those who actually provide value.
  
  If you want 100:1 you start negotiating at 1:1

This has to include part time workers. There is no way the median salary of ROSS is only 8k.
- Yea, even at the bare minimum federal wage of 7.25 that's still like 13k/Yr
  
  They wouldn't have those employees be full time because then they would need to pay benefits.

What's the font size to squint ratio?
- Yes. That's one crazy-ugly infographic.

Doesn't appear to be any correlation with the success or revenue of the company really. They just do whatever they want.

Could you please try again with more pixels?

Could someone explain Airbnb? Everyone has the same salary?
- Brian Chesky, the CEO, gets an annual bonus of around the average of all employees salary. This is completely irrelevant as he is a co-founder and owns 10.6% of the company or around 67 million shares. So at the most recent share price that's $9.17 billion, at least on paper.
  Such arrangements are common among tech companies.
- Very likely the pay comes in different streams than the actual salary
  
  Yes I don't think this image accounts for the different ways the rich are paid.
- I know it's weird, because they have a lot of call center employees that handle various situations. Maybe those aren't counted in the graphic for some reason, because there's no way a call center employee is making close a quarter million dollars.
- Maybe it's rounded down

Shouldn't it be no more than ten or something?
- Savateev suggests(for director to teacher pay ratio in his education system reform), if I remember correctly, no more than 3 times lowest paid worker in top 80% of highest-paid workers.
  
  Who is Savateev?

As a CEO id be stupid to get a salary. Dividends and stocks are much better tax-wise. Well maybe id get a smaller salary for the advantages in retirement and tax-free accounts and everything, but not much more than whats needed.
- Stock grants are taxed as regular income.
  Edit: downvotes from people who have no idea how stock, compensation, or taxes work, apparently.
  
  Rsus have to vest and then they're taxed when they drop to your account.
  
  Yeah people don't seem to understand taxes wrt stock at all. RSUs are definitely taxed!
  Only thing I can think of is they're thinking of options? Afaik those can be advantageous, tax-wise, because you are taxed when you exercise, not when they're granted or when they vest (this is my understanding --- I could be wrong).
  
  I thought founders usually get all their shares upon founding the company when it's worth next to nothing. Is that not how it works?
  
  Maybe in Europe
- I mean, you still have to have some money to survive day to day life.
  I wouldn't want my entire income to be based on the company's performance and the whims of the stock market.

What does this actually say if most billionaires like Musk or Bezos pay themselves only a symbolic income of about 1$ (if any)?

Even most of the low ones are outrageous. I'd cap that at 5, maybe 10 on a generous day. Including bonuses and stock options.

Low res graphic
- Did you click on it?
  It comes up high res for me.
  
  Hmm… seriously doesn’t come across on my phone. Perhaps I’ll check on my laptop

Is the red alphabet logo as in Google's parent company? I don't remember that logo being red...
- It was introduced in 2015 apparently: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alphabet_Inc_Logo_2015.svg
  Alphabet Inc was also created in 2015.
  
  Huh... Dunno why I don't remember it being all red...

cop art

More reasons to boycott Coca Cola, McDonald’s, Walmart, Nick and Starbucks.

Super interesting and nice chart. I wonder if it is a bit misleading to include part-time employees at some of these retail locations. Maybe it should only compare full-time. I know there are a lot of employees at say Walmart who are capped at 30 hours a week so they don’t have to pay them benefits and highlighting that is important too. But if it includes employees that work 10 hours a week it might be inflating the ratios and that might be why so many retailers are at the top of the list.