In Silicon Valley, the rich get richer while wages stagnate for the rest

Silicon Valley is considered an economic powerhouse, lauded as a model of economic growth the world over. Yet the wealth disparity between low, mid and high-level tech workers is far greater than it was two decades ago; worse, the economic impact of the tech industry in the Bay Area has been making the rich richer and the poor poorer, according to a new study published on Monday. READ MORE

Minimum wage hikes don't help poor people

That a higher minimum wage can actually lower incomes is one of those things intensely debated. Absolutely every economist will agree that this can be true at some level of that minimum wage. If you make the minimum wage $100 an hour, you're going to see an awful lot of people earning absolutely nothing through having no job at all. There are perhaps a few (Nick Hanauer comes to mind) who think that this is nonsense. READ MORE

Employees’ Share of Health Costs Continues Rising Faster Than Wages

Annual family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose five percent to an average $19,616 this year, extending a seven-year run of moderate increases.The average single deductible now stands at $1,573 for those workers who have one, similar to last year’s $1,505 average. On average, workers this year are contributing $5,547 toward the cost of family coverage, with employers paying the rest. READ MORE

Inside The Black Box Of CMO Compensation: What Is Negotiable And What Isn't

Navigating the CMO job offer. What is negotiable (and what isn’t), how best to negotiate, and when not to press? These are questions CMOs struggle to answer. To shed light on these questions, I talked with Richard Sanderson, former leader of the marketing officers executive search practice at Russell Reynolds Associates and currently a consultant for Spencer Stuart. In prior articles, Sanderson discussed the five mistakes CMOs make when negotiating an offer and the steps CMOs can take to protect themselves. Below, Sanderson provides insight on the negotiation to help CMOs better understand what levers to pull--and which to ignore. READ MORE

Total Compensation Has Flatlined for All But the Top 10%

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has long provided something called the Employer Cost Index. The idea behind this number is that it includes the total cost of employing someone: wages, of course, but also health care, retirement benefits, paid leave, etc. This is useful because it tells us how much employers really have to spend to hire an extra person. Here’s the answer for the past decade: READ MORE

One reliable way to raise wages is to … you know … raise wages

While middle-class wages haven’t grown much in inflation-adjusted terms over the past few years, that’s not the case for many lower-wage workers. Recent analysis by economist Elise Gould shows, for example, that while median pay was unchanged in 2017, low pay — the 10th-percentile wage, meaning 90 percent of workers earn more — rose at a strong clip of 3.7 percent. Follow-up work by Gould shows roughly similar results through the first half of this year. READ MORE

New IRS Guidance Regarding Section 162(m)’s Deduction Limitation for Executive Compensation

The Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) recently issued Notice 2018-68 (the “Notice”) that provides guidance regarding the application of Section 162(m) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (“Section 162(m)”) following the amendments contained in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “TCJA”). While helpful in clarifying certain issues, the Notice narrowly interprets key aspects of the amended Section 162(m) in a manner that is likely to increase the complexity of compliance and greatly restrict eligibility for grandfathering of pre-TCJA compensation arrangements. READ MORE