The Rich Just Get Richer

There are over 24 million American workers who can't find a full-time job in this economy, but the politicians in Washington don't seem to have any interest in helping them. They do want to help the rich though -- at least the Republicans do. They think these poor rich people shouldn't have to pay their fair share of taxes (even though those taxes are at the lowest level in several decades).

How badly are the rich doing? Not bad at all! Here's what the Associated Press (at PostBulliten.com) has discovered (and I'm only posting part of their very good article -- I urge you to read the whole thing):

CEOs at the nation's largest companies were paid better last year than they were in 2007, when the economy was booming, the stock market set a record high and unemployment was roughly half what it is today.


The typical pay package for the head of a company in the Standard & Poor's 500 was $9 million in 2010, according to an analysis by The Associated Press using data provided by Equilar, an executive compensation research firm. That was 24 percent higher than a year earlier, reversing two years of declines.


Executives were showered with more pay of all types — salaries, bonuses, stock, options and perks. The biggest gains came in cash bonuses: Two-thirds of executives got a bigger one than they had in 2009, some more than three times as big.


CEOs were rewarded because corporate profits soared in 2010 as the economy gradually got stronger and companies continued to cut costs. Profit for the companies in the AP analysis rose 41 percent last year.


Companies analyzed by AP granted their CEOs about $1.3 billion in stock in 2010, up about $300 million from the year before. They awarded stock options worth $702 million, or about $27 million more than the year before.


MEANWHILE. . .


Pay for workers grew to an average of about $40,500, but the average wage was less than one-half of one percent of what the typical CEO in the AP analysis made.