From the San Francisco Chronicle, April 27:
A law that requires public companies to disclose the median pay of their
employees and compare it with their CEO’s compensation is producing
some eye-popping numbers that spotlight income inequality in America.
Among the 40 largest Bay Area companies that have reported, median
employee pay last year ranged from $5,375 at Gap to $240,430 at
Facebook.
The median is the midpoint at which half of workers make more and
half make less. Gap said its median-paid employee, a real person, was a
part-time sales associate in Alabama who worked a partial year and whose
pay was not annualized. If you were instead to compare senior software
engineers at Facebook and Gap, their pay disparity would be much less
startling. But that’s not what the law requires.
The CEO-to-worker pay ratios at these two companies were also extreme.
Gap CEO Arthur Peck took home $15.6 million, or 2,900 times more than the median employee.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made 32 times what the
median Facebook worker earned. Zuckerberg took a $1 salary last year and
got no new stock grants (on top of the $70 billion in Facebook stock he
already owns). His $8.8 million in compensation last year was mainly
for his personal security detail and private aircraft use.
Google parent Alphabet said its median employee made $197,274 last
year; its CEO and co-founder Larry Page took home his usual $1,
producing a pay ratio near zero....MUCH MORE
