this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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The problem is these people in the top positions don't see anything wrong with this.
I remember telling my republican friend that companies could easily raise worker pay. He laughed said that hamburgers would cost $20. I said you don't need to raise the price of the product, the people at the top could make less money. He then said "Oh, they are NOT going to do that."
Cutting CEO pay would not affect worker pay that much.
Fortune 500 CEOs make, on average, about 17MM a year. The average Fortune 500 company has 52k employees.
If you split their entire paycheck among just the bottom 50% of employees you're looking at like $3 per hour. That's... okay. But now you don't have a CEO, and this isn't really sustainable with any sort of inflation.
If you instead raise prices one cent on whatever product or service, you almost certainly will have more money to divvy up among employees, and it's sustainable.
Worth noting I'm for a federal cap on CEO pay but that's more to address the runaway nature of the CEO market, and its downstream effects.
I think your decimal may be off. For full time work, looks like ~36 cents per hour, assuming full time. But, for many it would be even worse. For Walmart, completely eliminating the CEO pay could increase the bottom 50% earners annual income by a whopping $22.
I agree with the overall sentiment tho. More than what this article shows, I’d be interested to see the percentage and dollar amount increase in disposable income among various cohorts within the top 10 percent incomes.