Opinion | How the Public Purse Can Address Huge Pay Gaps for Low-Wage Workers at US Corporations

  • 📰 commondreams
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 59 sec. here
  • 2 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 27%
  • Publisher: 51%

United States Headlines News

United States Latest News,United States Headlines

'The Biden administration could use executive action to give corporations with narrow pay ratios preferential treatment in government contracting.'

shows that 87 percent of Americans view the growing gap between CEO and worker pay as a problem for the country. And yet ordinary U.S. taxpayers are fueling corporations with huge pay gaps through the hundreds of billions of dollars in federal contracts and subsidies that flow every year to for-profit businesses.at the 300 publicly held U.S. corporations that had the lowest median wages in 2020.

These contractors’ average CEOs compensation rose from $7.7 million in 2020 to $13.0 million last year.Seventeen of the firms repurchased their own shares in 2021, with expenditures totaling $4.6 billion. Stock buybacks siphon artificially inflates the value of a company’s shares — and the value of their CEO’s stock-based pay.The corporations in our low-wage sample with the largest federal contracts come from diverse service, technology, and manufacturing sectors.

By contrast, Maximus CEO Bruce Caswell’s 2021 compensation totaled $7.9 million, 208 times the firm’s median pay and 36 times the salary of the top officials at the government agencies responsible for the company’s largest contracts. Maximus offers a prime example of how extreme pay gaps undermine enterprise effectiveness. A March 2022by the Communications Workers of America and the Student Borrower Protection Center revealed extensive Maximus mismanagement. The study found evidence of sloppy and potentially unlawful student loan servicing, unfair debt collection practices, and unlawful wage garnishments and public benefit seizures, sometimes even involving Social Security payments.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 530. in US

United States Latest News, United States Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

New coach, new facility have Florida eyeing better resultsBilly Napier’s methodical, multifaceted approach to returning Florida to national prominence might actually be on a fast track.
Source: wjxt4 - 🏆 246. / 63 Read more »

Lamborghini Urus welcomes new challenges, accomplishes mammoth feat in new filmItalian automaker Lamborghini is once again racing towards greatness, this time the kind that breaks records, in a new vignette.
Source: LuxuryDaily - 🏆 325. / 59 Read more »

New York restricts families from sending packages to inmates - New York Amsterdam NewsUnder the new policy, which the state began last month, friends and family aren’t allowed to deliver packages in person during prison visits. They also won’t be allowed to mail boxes of goodies unless those come directly from third-party vendors.
Source: NYAmNews - 🏆 269. / 63 Read more »

Mallbangs Announces New EP Checking for Daggers, Shares 'New Face'A sonic expression of the idea that grief isn’t linear, “New Face” swerves around swells of distorted guitars and droning synths.
Source: PasteMagazine - 🏆 392. / 55 Read more »

Aman’s New 14-Day Private Jet Expedition Flies You From New York to the Dominican RepublicYou'll visit tropical islands, snowcapped mountains and remote deserts in five countries.
Source: RobbReport - 🏆 309. / 63 Read more »

New school year brings new challenges as many lag behind from COVIDA new, in-person school year is underway in Oakland, and for parents and teachers alike, that means a chance for kids to catch up on learning time lost during COVID.
Source: KPIXtv - 🏆 443. / 53 Read more »