Media clips
-
According to the report by the Economic Policy Institute, CEOs of the top 350 publicly owned U.S. companies earned, on average, $16.3 million a year — 303.4 times more than the average worker earned in 2014. The ratio of CEO-to-average worker pay is up 244.7 percent since 1965, when it was 20-to-1, the report states. It is down, however, from a 2000 peak of about 376-to-1. The Economic Policy Institute attributes the sharp increase in the ratio of CEO-to-average worker pay to skyrocketing CEO compensation even as average worker pay has stagnated. Since 1978, when pay packages began to rise more dramatically, CEO compensation has gone up 997 percent, even as the average worker pay has risen 10.9 percent in the same period.huff
The Huffington Post June 23, 2015 -
In 1975, the last year the threshold was significantly raised, 60 percent of salaried workers fell within the requirement for overtime pay. Today, only 8 percent do, according to statistics compiled by the Economic Policy Institute. Under the new rule, millions of workers will be reclassified. Businesspeople oppose the change, calling it a job killer. Supporters anticipate a positive effect on job creation, income inequality and wage stagnation.
The New York Times June 22, 2015 -
Lavish CEO pay is no secret. Reviewing the largest 350 firms, Lawrence Mishel and Alyssa Davis of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute find that chief executive pay averaged $16.3 million in 2014. The New York Times, citing estimates from the consulting firm Equilar, reports that the 200 best-paid CEOs averaged $22.6 million. To be fair, some qualifications. Even Mishel concedes that CEO pay is below previous peaks in 2000 and 2007, mainly because the stock market has lagged. (CEO compensation routinely includes large stock grants.) Still, CEOs have far outpaced most workers. In 1965, the ratio of CEO pay to the pay of typical workers was 20 to 1, Mishel estimates. Now it’s 300 to 1.
The Washington Post June 22, 2015 -
“The claim is that high CEO pay is a marker for talent,” says Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute and co-author of the report, who disagrees with the notion that the extraordinarily high compensation of executives is proportional to the skill required to run a large, publicly traded company. “This data would suggest that executives are not only 300 times more talented than the average worker, but also six times more talented and valuable than other people in the top one-thousandth of earners.”
Wall Street Journal June 22, 2015 -
The US economy is rebounding for the nation’s top income earners, but not for everyone else, according to a new study from the Economic Policy Institute. The study, published Sunday, finds that chief executives at the country’s 350 biggest firms earned an average of $16.3 million in 2014, marking a 54.3 percent increase since 2009. Meanwhile, compensation for typical workers in the same industries as those CEOs fell 1.7 percent over the same time period. “Those at the top of the income distribution, including many CEOs, are seeing a strong recovery, while the typical worker is still experiencing the detrimental effects of a stagnant labor market,” the study authors, Lawrence Mishel and Alyssa Davis, found.
Mother Jones June 22, 2015 -
The current answer appears to be a ratio of more than 300-to-1, according to a new study from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. The meteoric rise of CEO pay is nothing short of breathtaking, outpacing not only the wages of ordinary workers, but also gains in the stock market and the not-too-shabby rise of income among America’s 0.1 percent of top earners. Surging CEO pay has potentially negative implications for other employees, leaving less on the table for wages, benefits and other compensation. Top execs at large public companies are keeping about 10 percent of their companies’ net profits, about double the rate in the early 1990s, according to the AFL-CIO.
While some would argue that CEOs are earning more because they provide extraordinary benefits to their companies, EPI president Lawrence Mishel says the evidence doesn’t support that. “CEO compensation has done so much better than corporate profits or the stock market,” Mishel said. “I don’t think it’s because they are very highly skilled, although they are skilled. The other high-wage earners are very highly skilled as well. I think CEOs are paid more because they can get paid more.”
CBS Moneywatch June 22, 2015 -
CEO pay at the nation’s largest companies is 303 times that of the average pay of their employees, according to a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. The average total compensation of CEOs at the 350 largest firms, including stock options and other bonuses, came to $16.3 million in 2014, according to EPI. That compares to just over $50,000 in pay for their workers.
CNN Money June 22, 2015 -
While the Great Recession officially ended six years ago, the labor market has not yet fully recovered, and that’s left many college graduates struggling to find jobs that match their skills and education level. “The depth of the recession and the slow pace of recovery since it ended means that seven classes of students have now graduated into a weak labor market and have had to compete with more experienced workers for a limited and slowly growing pool of job opportunities,” wrote researchers at the Economic Policy Institute in a recent paper.
CNBC June 22, 2015 -
In its new report, Inequalities at the Starting Gate, the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute found that race-based gaps in skills such as reading, math, eagerness to learn, persistence, and focus shrink significantly when socioeconomic status is taken into account. About 46 percent of black children live in poverty, the study noted. Sixty-three percent of Hispanic ELLs live in poverty. Emma García, an economist at EPI and the author of the report, said that there is an economic imperative to addressing these academic and non-cognitive skills gaps. “Not doing anything is going to be more costly than doing something,” she said. “We are compromising so much human capital by not making sure children are ready to learn and can develop fully when they go to school.” The report’s title is a deliberate allusion to a 2002 report, also published by the Economic Policy Institute, called Inequality at the Starting Gate. That study drew on the experiences of children who started school in 1998.
Education Week June 19, 2015 -
One report from the Economic Policy Institute shows that the companies are abusing the H1-B visa program to help U.S. companies cut labor costs. Brookings, however, found that H1-B workers make more than their American counterparts.
The Atlantic June 19, 2015