Democratic Business: minimum wage

Monday, December 29, 2008

CEO Joe Is Worth 344 Times More than Average Joe

Is it possible for someone's work to be worth 866 times more than another person's or are oligarchical corporations exploiting American workers? The average Fortune 500 CEO makes 866 times more money than a minimum wage employee.

Exploitation is no longer an "overseas" occurrence. "Last year, average CEO pay rose 2.6 percent to $10,544,470, according to an Associated Press survey of S&P 500 firms. That’s 344 times the pay of an average American worker. The gap between CEO's and minimum wage workers runs even wider. In 2007, CEO's averaged 866 times as much as minimum wage employees." (Taken from http://www.faireconomy.org/files/executive_excess_2008.pdf)

"There has been a massive shift of income from the bottom and middle to the top. The richest 1% of Americans has increased their share of the nation’s income to a higher level than any year since 1928—the eve of the Great Depression." (Taken from http://www.letjusticeroll.org/pdfs/Why10in2010.pdf)

How Will You Measure Your Life?

I recently read this article by Clayton Christiansen out of Harvard entitled, “How will you measure your life?” It is what he tells his students on the final day of his class.

One of the items that he mentions sticks out to me. It reads as follows:

“One of the theories, . . . . . how to be sure we find happiness in our careers—is from Frederick Herzberg, who asserts that the powerful motivator in our lives isn’t money; it’s the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute to others, and be recognized for achievements. I tell the students about a vision of sorts I had while I was running the company I founded before becoming an academic. In my mind’s eye I saw one of my managers leave for work one morning with a relatively strong level of self-esteem. Then I pictured her driving home to her family 10 hours later, feeling unappreciated, frustrated, underutilized, and demeaned. I imagined how profoundly her lowered self-esteem affected the way she interacted with her children. The vision in my mind then fast-forwarded to another day, when she drove home with greater self-esteem—feeling that she had learned a lot, been recognized for achieving valuable things, and played a significant role in the success of some important initiatives. I then imagined how positively that affected her as a spouse and a parent. My conclusion: Management is the most noble of professions if it’s practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team. More and more [people think] that a career in business means buying, selling, and investing in companies. That’s unfortunate. Doing deals doesn’t yield the deep rewards that come from building up people."

I’m sure you can see why it sticks out.