ECONOMY - Widening Income Gap 5/2011

"What Does Widening U.S. Income Gap Mean for Future of Economy, Americans?"
PBS Newshour 5/6/2011

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Excerpts from transcript

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): The Associated Press, which released the study on CEO compensation, put it this way: In the boardroom, it's as if the great recession never happened.

CEO pay, including salaries, bonuses, and stock options, was up 24 percent last year, to a level higher than 2007, just before the recession hit. The 10 highest-paid executives made a combined $440 million. Six of them came from the world of media and entertainment, including the heads of Viacom and CBS.

The study came a day after the Fortune 500 list was released, showing corporate profits increased by 81 percent last year, or more than $300 billion.
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VINEETA ANAND (chief research analyst in the AFL-CIO Office of Investment): Well, actually, as shareholders -- and we are shareholders representing workers through the pension plans -- we are very worried, because CEOs and the rich have gotten richer in the United States, whereas everybody else has been left behind.

The disparity has grown so that, in 1980, CEOs made about 42 times the pay of an average worker. And in 2010 it was 324 times. So, that's a huge jump. And it is as if the recession never happened.

You quoted the AP numbers. And our own database we launched earlier last month, Executive Pay Watch, showed that 299 of the S&P 500 CEOs made a collective $3.4 billion. And that could support 103,000 workers making average wages.

"Hay, I have a good idea, lets give these big companies larger tax breaks! " That's what Republicans would have you believe as a good idea, the general public (below top 2% yearly income group) doesn't really need such a tax break.

Note that I'm one tax payer who believes that IF we are to address the deficit issue, the government (local/state/federal) needs MORE income which means higher taxes. But that makes giving tax breaks to the richest people or companies even more wrong.

Another issue, the claim by the Big Company spokes person (Deborah Wince- Smith) in the segment that corporate-America needs to be more competitive because.....

We have really left a 20th century non-high-skilled economy. The jobs of the future are requiring entirely different skill sets. So the disparity we're seeing in income is often directly linked to educational levels and skills levels.

.....is an exaggeration, only partially true. Some of these non-high-skilled jobs are still needed but they are being sourced-out to foreign countries for no other reason than to save companies money (paying salaries) for bigger profits. The reasoning that company profits are much more important than the American worker. IF you like this idea, continue to vote Republican.