September 05, 2005
Happy Labor Day
Executive Compensation
2004 was a banner year for CEOs and a dismal year for workers, according to a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy, Executive Excess 2005: Defense Contractors Get More Bucks for the Bang. The ratio of average CEO pay (now $11.8 million) to worker pay (now $27,460) spiked up from 301-to-1 in 2003 to 431-to-1 in 2004. If the minimum wage had risen as fast as CEO pay since 1990, the lowest paid workers in the US would be earning $23.03 an hour today, not $5.15 an hour. The report found that CEOs are individually profiting from the Iraq War, with huge average raises at the biggest defense contractors."
http://www.faireconomy.org/press/2005/EE2005.pdf
>related: United for a Fair Economy's Research Library
[graph via Inequality.org\ thanks Walker