Even when CEO pay drops, liberals whine. The New York Times turned its report on CEO pay into a complaint on inequality and the “large-scale transfer of wealth” it created for rich, white men.
Large corporations, according to the Times, are transferring wealth “to a few hundred individuals — most of them men, most of them white.”
That’s how the Times reports about CEO pay falling, not rising. Reporter David Gelles said on May 27, 2016, that average pay for top CEO’s fell by a “mere $19.3 million.” That came at the end of a story in which Gelles suggested that falling CEO pay indicated compensation committees might be finding “modesty.”
Gelles turned the report into a piece on inequality, which he said provided a “reliable rallying” cry for presidential candidates in responding to “outrage” from the working class.
The Times published the results in context of a Securities and Exchange Commission rule announced in August, 2015. Starting in 2018, the rule would require companies to disclose the ratio of CEO pay to that of their median employee’s.
Gelles, apparently a proponent of even more regulation, worried the SEC rule might not be strict enough.
“The Securities and Exchange Commission will allow companies significant leeway when interpreting their own data, which could keep ratios down,” Gelles wrote.
Later in the article, Gelles detailed gaps among multiple CEO’s and their workers, and hyped gaps in general as “gargantuan.” “When executive compensation is compared with worker salaries, today’s pay packages seem gargantuan,” Gelles argued.
Gelles quoted two sources who disputed the morality of CEO pay, including an AFL-CIO official who described high pay as “immoral” and a symptom of America’s broken economic system.
“The rules of our economy have been written to allow the rich and powerful to keep getting richer and more powerful, while the rest of us are fighting for the scraps. It’s reprehensible,” Heather Slavko-Corzkin, director of the AFL-CIO’s investment office, said.
Back in 2012, a New York Times headline started “Rich Game of Thrones,” and described CEO pay increases as “numbing.” The Times isn’t alone. Multiple media outlets have complained that CEOs get too much in pay.
In 2007, for example, Robin Roberts of ABC’s Good Morning America said in response to a report on CEO pay raises: “Come on, you have got to be kidding me.” And in 2008, CNN complained about CEO’s receiving severance pay, including a Countrywide CEO who gave up $37.5 million.
