CEOs of public U.S. firms earn 320 times as much as workers. Even some CEOS say the gap is too big.

Last August, Jamelle Brown, a technician at Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri, contracted Covid-19 while on the job sanitizing and sterilizing rooms in the facility's emergency department. Luckily, his case wasn't severe, and after having quarantined, he was back at work.

Upon his return, Brown was named Employee of the Month in his unit and given a gift voucher for use in the hospital cafeteria. The amount: $6. READ MORE

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's base pay stays at $1, but total compensation rises to $25.3 million

Facebook Inc. F, -0.72% Founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg's base pay in 2020 remained at $1, which it has been since 2013, and he again received zero in bonuses and stock awards. However, his total compensation rose 8%to $25.29 million from $23.42 million in 2019, with all but $1 of that total being in the form of "all other compensation," according to the social network company's proxy statement filed late Friday. For Zuckerberg, all other compensation includes $13.44 million for costs related to personal security at his residences and during personal travel, a $10.00 million allowance to cover additional costs related to personal security for Zuckerberg and his family, and $1.85 million for costs related to personal use of private aircraft. Facebook's stock, which fell 0.8% in morning trading Monday, has rallied 23.4% over the past three months while the S&P 500 SPX, -0.20% has tacked on 8.4%. READ MORE

Masters 2021: Here's the prize money payout for each golfer at Augusta National

The spoils of winning the Masters are numerous and overwhelming, as 2021 champion Hideki Matsuyama is about to find out. There’s the green jacket, of course, and the Masters trophy, plus the chance to tee it up every April at Augusta National for the rest of your life. You have a seat reserved at the Champions Dinner each year and a space in the Champions locker room whenever you’re back down Magnolia Lane. Oh, and your golf legacy is fairly secure, “Masters champion” mentioned any time you’re introduced in public. READ MORE

Revisiting withholding on equity compensation

Employers have various tools to attract and retain talent: cash, equity, fringe benefits, and others. Equity compensation has dual benefits of tying key employees' compensation to the company's performance while often offering such employees a tax deferral. Many employers may have looked to equity compensation during the COVID-19 crisis to retain valued employees who are vital in helping the company rebound from a downturn, while also benefiting the company's cash position. READ MORE

Don’t Let Misalignment in Executive Compensation Create Your Own “Black Sox Scandal”

In many companies, executive compensation is determined or negotiated according to an established compensation structure that is derived from their talent acquisition and retention strategy which in turn is driven by their business goals. Typically, a company would identify key growth indicators and ensure that each key executive’s incentives are aligned with company success. READ MORE

New Analysis Reveals 20 Years of Stagnant Wage Growth

American workers have seen their real earnings grow by less than 10% over the last two decades, with a growing racial gap where gains by Black workers are half that of their White counterparts, according to new earnings data released by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP).

LISEP today launched a new measure of economic performance called the True Weekly Earnings (TWE) report, which is designed to provide a clearer picture of worker earnings than the Median Weekly Earnings Report released quarterly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Unlike the BLS report, LISEP includes all members of the workforce – including unemployed and part-time workers – to arrive at a more realistic measure of worker median earnings and their growth over time. READ MORE

Do not mourn the wage gap

Many progressive feminists mark “Equal Pay Day” as a sad day, the day that women would have to work into 2021 to catch up with men’s earnings from 2020. Equal Pay Day this year is March 24. Indeed, if the wage gap were really what it is often presented to be -- evidence of widespread discrimination against women -- then Equal Pay Day would be more than sad. It would be an outrage. And it would represent widespread violation of existing laws that prohibit discrimination. READ MORE

S&P 500 failing to implement diversity or align pay with performance

The largest firms in the US are failing to align their executive compensation with company performance, according to new research from CGLytics, which finds an ‘arbitrary’ approach being taken to executive pay among S&P 500 companies.

CGLytics’ second annual S&P 500 report, titled ‘Do 2020 trends foretell the future?’ questions whether the pay cuts announced by companies in the grip of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic were a ‘facade’, with an average cut of just 6 percent on CEO pay for the financial year 2019. READ MORE

Starting salaries to rise for 2021 college grads

Average starting salaries for graduates in the college class of 2021 are expected to increase, with salaries for engineering majors projected to be up 1.6% to $71,088, according to data from the 2021 Salary Survey released by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Some majors will see increases are on the smaller side, although salaries for computer science grads are an exception. Computer science majors include computer science, information sciences and systems, and software applications. READ MORE

White House clarifies which wealthy individual filers will get snagged by Biden tax hike

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday said that individuals who make up to $400,000 won’t pay an extra penny in taxes under President Biden’s new plan.

The president has been clear all along that families earning up to $400,000 would not be the target of the tax hike, but it was unclear whether there would be a lower income threshold for individual filers. READ MORE