Weighty Pay Scales: The stock market is improving. Corporate profits are up dramatically. But workers’ wages don’t seem to be rising, a study finds vs. CEO compensation continued on an upward trajectory in ’11
Workers’ salaries and wages are generally stagnant mid high unemployment – even while the economy slowly generates new jobs, stock markets rebound, average worker productivity increases and corporate profits soar.
The biggest pay packages seem to keep getting bigger at major US public companies. Timothy Cook, CEO of Apple Inc. earned $378 million in total compensation in 2011. The package is a dramatic illustration of how CEO pay continues to edge upward as the stock market soars and the economy regains it footing.
Nearly 90% of the economy’s real income growth during the current recovery has gone into corporate profits, after companies slashed payrolls, kept wages down, and squeezed productivity out of existing employees. The average American worker has gotten virtually nothing in their paychecks from this recovery, even though jobs are slowly coming back and profits are up.
Corporate profits have increased 93% before taxes from the fourth quarter of 2008 through the fourth quarter of 2011. The Dow Jones Average has risen by 35%. But mean wages have risen only .4% over the past three years and weekly wages have actually fallen by .1%.
Jay Fitzgerald and Todd Wallack, The Boston Globe, April 8, 2012
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