CEO pay and you: It's NOT a good thing!

Now we know where missing worker raises have gone

In the past few decades, CEO pay has skyrocketed while the average worker’s pay has stagnated despite increases in productivity. Multinational corporations park their profits overseas and shirk their responsibilities as taxpayers. The middle class is dwindling and more and more working people are living hand-to-mouth. Learn more about the pervasive inequality in the United States and spread the word.

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CEO Pay and North Carolina

The gap between the very rich and the rest of us has never been bigger! In 1980, CEO pay equaled 42 times the average blue-collar worker’s pay. By 2011, CEO pay had grown to 380 times workers’ average pay, by far the widest gap in the world.

The average CEO pay in North Carolina is $5,009,832. Average worker pay in 2012 in North Carolina was $38,948. Are we really supposed to believe that North Carolina CEOs work 129 times harder than teachers and firefighters?

Despite the recession, CEOs are doing better than ever, pulling in record-high profits and rewarding themselves with lavish stock options, retirement plans and golden parachutes. Meanwhile, millions are still looking for work and struggling to make ends meet with part-time jobs and depressed wages.

The highest paid CEO in North Carolina in 2012 was William Johnson at Duke Energy, who made $28,655,920 - 736 times the average North Carolina worker's pay!

Our system has become so rigged that no matter what happens, the rich keep getting richer and working families continue paying for it in the form of slashed jobs, wages, health benefits and
retirement. Working behind closed doors to make that happen are groups like CEO-backed “Fix the Debt,” which drums up debt hysteria to mask their efforts to secure even more tax cuts for the wealthy while plotting to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits for working people.

Learn more about CEO pay and you, compare what you make to North Carolina CEOs, and see how other workers' pay compares to the lavish compensation chief executive officers make at www.paywatch.org.