CEO Compensation Exploded While Americans Struggled

 

Exhibit A as to why top executives and their companies should be paying for the Biden jobs/ infrastructure plan with their taxes:

The coronavirus plunged the world into an economic crisis, sent the U.S. unemployment rate skyrocketing and left millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet. Yet at many of the companies hit hardest by the pandemic, the executives in charge were showered with riches.

The divergent fortunes of C.E.O.s and everyday workers illustrate the sharp divides in a nation on the precipice of an economic boom but still racked by steep income inequality. The stock markets are up and the wealthy are spending freely, but millions are still facing significant hardship. Executives are minting fortunes while laid-off workers line up at food banks.

“Many of these C.E.O.s have improved profitability by laying off workers,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, who has proposed new taxes on the ultrawealthy. “A tiny handful of people who have shimmied all the way to the top of the greasy pole get all of the rewards, while everyone else gets left behind.”

Robert Reich elaborates:

“To my mind, they’re the logical consequence of our total embrace of shareholder capitalism, starting with the corporate raiders of the 1980s, to the exclusion and sacrifice of all else, including American workers,” said Robert Reich, a labor secretary under President Bill Clinton. “The pay packages reflect soaring share prices, which in turn reflect, at least in part, the willingness if not eagerness of corporations to cut payrolls at the slightest provocation.”

Now, make sure you're sitting down for this:

AT&T, the media conglomerate, lost $5.4 billion and cut thousands of jobs throughout the year. John Stankey, the chief executive, received $21 million for his work in 2020, down from $22.5 million in 2019.

T-Mobile said it would create new jobs through its merger with Sprint, but has already begun layoffs. It made $3.1 billion in 2020. In addition to [former CEO] Mr. [John] Legere’s windfall, the company awarded its current chief executive, Mike Sievert, $54.9 million.

The article goes on with many, many more examples of personal and corporate greed and bad corporate citizenship.

In the meantime, the Biden American Jobs Plan is asking that people making over $400,000 a year and corporations pay their fair share in taxes to "build back better," something that will pay enormous dividends for decades to come to America and to many of their companies (think of the windfall from broadband expansion, for example, for AT&T and T-Mobile).  When there are 91 Fortune 500 companies paying zero federal taxes on U.S. income, and when they're cutting payrolls rather than executive salaries, there's no moral or economic justification for this continuing inequality, especially when there's a demonstrable need for their tax dollars to be applied to the re- building of America.  Closing loopholes and returning the tax rates to where they were before Trump's tax- cuts- for- the- rich is one way to begin to address questions of equity while simultaneously benefiting the common good.