Does your paycheck still make you cry? Do you wonder why the bosses are all giddy like high school girls? Well this could be why (via Think Progress):
At a time most employees can barely remember their last substantial raise, median CEO pay jumped 27% in 2010 as the executives’ compensation started working its way back to prerecession levels, a USA TODAY analysis of data from GovernanceMetrics International found.Workers in private industry, meanwhile, saw their compensation grow just 2.1% in the 12 months ended December 2010, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
So the big bosses saw raises 13x that of their employees. How can we celebrate that? I know! Let’s give them even more tax cuts, and to pay for it, we can raise the taxes on those that saw the very generous 2.1% raises.
And to show just how bad this problem is, Think Progress adds this little tidbit of joy:
Median CEO pay last year was $9 million, the highest since 2007. The median CEO bonus was $2.2 million. Family wealth, meanwhile, is currently down $12.8 trillion from its 2007 peak.
The middle class is being eradicated, while the fat cats are getting fatter. That 2.1% raise for the average worker has already been eaten up by inflation alone this year, yet I’m sure many in Washington will celebrate this as good news.
Is this really the America we want?