CEOs already made more than average workers will all year

You won't believe how little these CEOs had to work to do it (or maybe you will)

In 2014, according to the AFL-CIO, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio was 373:1 compared to 42:1 in 1980, but the highest paid CEO in North Carolina made 707 times the average worker.

Meanwhile, almost half of all workers here make less than $15 an hour, starting pay at Walmart, the largest private employer, is just $9 an hour, and thanks to state lawmakers' refusal to do anything to boost wages, North Carolina's minimum wage remains stuck at $7.25.

On January 5th, Britons concerned about runaway executive compensation in an increasingly low-wage economy celebrated "Fat Cat Tuesday".  Writing in the Huffington Post, IPS Global Economy Project Director Sarah Anderson explains the significance of that date:

By late afternoon on January 5, the second working day of the year, Britain's top bosses had earned more than the average UK worker would earn in the entire year, according to the High Pay Centre, an independent think tank.But American bosses could kick off even earlier in the year and still make as much as an average U.S. worker would in all of 2016.

According to the AFL-CIO, CEOs of large U.S. corporations made $13.5 million on average in 2014, while average worker pay stood at $36,134. Using the High Pay Centre's methodology, I calculated that the American bosses would have to work only 11 hours to make the average worker's annual salary, compared to 22 hours for their British counterparts.

American bosses only have to work only 11 hours to make the average worker's annual salary.

Based on her total compensation of $24.9 million dollars in 2014, Susan Devore, North Carolina's highest-paid CEO, only had to work three hours to make the average worker's annual pay.

An absurd level of income inequality.

Read more here to find out what's being done about excessive CEO compensation. Learn more about runaway executive pay in the United States here. Source: US and UK CEOs Have Already Made More Than the Average Worker Will Earn All Year | Sarah Anderson