CEO Pay is Out Of Line

Back in 1980, before the Republicans started to ruin the U.S. economy with their failed trickle-down economic policy, a corporate CEO in this country earned about 42 times the average worker's pay. That was a lot of money, but it was pretty much in line with what CEO's were making in other countries. But back then unions were fairly strong and income from increased production was shared throughout the company.

But the Republicans decided that the way to a healthier economy was to make rich people even richer. To accomplish that, they cut taxes for the rich, severely weakened unions, and deregulated much of the financial industry (and other corporate entities). This did make the rich even richer and corporations more profitable, but it also encouraged a lot more greed at the top. The new money the rich had did not trickle down, and the new profits of corporations were no longer shared with workers throughout the company.

In fact, worker pay did not even increase enough to account for inflation (which means their actual buying power dropped). But the corporate fat cats reveled in the new money they were no longer sharing. By 2010, corporate CEOs were making a staggering 343 times the pay of an average worker. And it is still growing. In 2011, that ratio had climbed to 380 times the pay of an average worker.

That is way out of whack, and something needs to be done to bring it back down. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka hits the nail right on the head when he says, "Astronomical CEO pay is based on the false idea that the success of a corporation is due to one CEO genius. In reality, all employees create value, and CEO pay levels should be more in line with the rest of their company's employee pay structure. CEOs should be paid as a member of a team, not as a superstar."