While the unemployment rate in Wisconsin hovers at 7.4 percent, and legislators consider bills attacking the rights and pay of private and public sector workers, numbers released today by Executive PayWatch at www.paywatch.org show that Wisconsin-based chief executive officers haven’t had to worry about making ends meet.
The highest paid CEO in Wisconsin made $17,563,931 in 2010 which is 592 times what the average Wisconsin worker made. And excessive CEO pay isn’t just limited to Wisconsin. Millions of Americans struggle to get back on their feet after the worst economic downturn in decades, yet CEOs of the nation’s largest companies got an average pay of $11.4 million in 2010 – a 23 percent increase in one year. Where is the shared sacrifice?
“Corporate CEOs have made the unpatriotic decision to ship thousands or our American jobs overseas in order to bolster their already enormous compensation. While worker rights are under attack here in Wisconsin the wealthy are getting richer at the expense of the middle class,” said Stephanie Bloomingdale, Secretary-Treasurer of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO.
“CEOs here in Wisconsin are making millions while the state legislature is introducing bills benefiting millionaires and CEOs at the expensive of average working Wisconsinites. Doesn’t Gov. Walker think we should make sure corporate CEOs pay their fair share?” asked Leigh Ullman, a social worker at the Human Services Building in Sheboygan and President of Wisconsin Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals Local 5011.
The release of the searchable online data bank is part of a broad campaign by the AFL-CIO to strengthen Wall Street reform, close corporate tax loopholes and ensure that poor and middle class Americans are no longer required to pay for the greed of corporate CEOs.
Executive PayWatch’s searchable data bank enables users to get information by state, industry and top-paid CEOs and compare the pay of top CEOs with the median pay of nurses, teachers, firefighters and other workers. For the first time, Facebook users will also have access to the information and to participate in the campaign. Try out the database by clicking here.
The AFL-CIO’s CEO pay estimate is based on 299 companies in the S&P 500 Index whose executive compensation data is available for 2010. The 299 CEOs received a combined total of $3.4 billion in 2010, enough compensation to support 102,325 jobs paying median wages. The median wage for all occupations was $33,190 in 2009, according to the latest available data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Comments