Fortune was referring to the 350 or so of the largest companies by revenues in the U.S. where the average CEO’s compensation has gone from twelve times the entry-level wage in their company in 1940, to forty-two times in 1980, to about five hundred times by the year 2000!

So I started doing my own research to get a handle on this income gap.  According to the Economic Policy Institute:

In 2005, an average Chief Executive Officer (CEO) was paid 821 times as much as a minimum wage earner, who earns just $5.15 per hour. An average CEO earns more before lunchtime on the very first day of work in the year than a minimum wage worker earns all year.

There’s also a handy chart put together by the AFL-CIO (from this Finfacts article) which helps drive home the point:

Needless to say, we need a minimum wage increase.  We also need a way to incentivize a smaller wage gap within a company.  I would propose providing businesses a tax credit that grows in proportion to the decrease in salary “difference factor” between the highest- and lowest-paid positions.  For instance, if a business pays its CEO $50 million and its lowest-paid retail clerk $40,000, that is a “difference factor” of 1,250, meaning the top staffer makes 3,300 times that of the bottom.  We provide the subsidy for factors of 100 and lower.  So the company would have to either bring its CEO salary down to $4 million, or bring the lowest-paid staff to $500,000.  I imagine a company would happily entertain the former.

This will be our second gig after the release of our album, Ketty’s Kitchen, over 2 years in the making.

Be you in love, lovelorn, lovely, or lost, The Underberrys invite you to be their Valentine.  That said, bring your own Valentine too!  Happy hearts and wet kissess for all comers!

Look and listen at www.kettyskitchen.com!