Stop paying people for not working

A policy question these days that has befuddled federal lawmakers is why so many millions of people have not returned to the workplace in the post-COVID-19 era. The labor force participation rate among employable adults is near a record low today. There are at least 2 million to 4 million employable adults who could and should be working but aren't.  

Very few people with even minimal skills can credibly say they can't find a job. Employers report some 10 million job openings. Small business owners say their biggest problem is finding competent workers.  READ MORE

Bosses pay workers to move closer to offices

Companies are bringing back relocation benefits, paying for workers to move across the country and around the world again, in a sign of how much bosses really do want workers back in the office. 

Job postings in the U.S. that mention relocation benefits were up nearly 75% as of February, the latest month available, when compared with the prior year, according to hiring platform Indeed.com. On ZipRecruiter, job ads that tout relocation money have more recently doubled to 3.8 million, after falling under two million in 2020.  READ MORE

‘No one was actually working’: Worker says employees at former tech job could choose their own salary

The recent tech layoffs, paired with the current economic downturn, have put more eyes on the tech industry, its hiring practices, and the actual work being done by employees.

Former employees from tech giants like Meta have claimed they were paid six-figure salaries to “do nothing.” Another tech employee sarcastically described the actions of a 6 hour workday as “chang[ing] a button from blue to a slightly different blue.” A recent Wall Street Journal article details numerous complaints from former tech employees about the lack of work given to them on the job, with one employee saying they received only one assignment in nearly 8 months with the company. READ MORE

How companies can respond to new salary transparency laws

One of the largest trends for U.S. hiring in 2023 is the push for pay transparency. After a flurry of local and state legislation last year, 2023 begins with employers facing uncharted hiring territory. Already more than 1 in 4 Americans live in cities or states with laws requiring pay transparency in hiring practices.

Adding to this momentum, a sustained, robust hiring market and the democratization of access to potential employers through online job boards empowered job candidates to become more selective in where they apply. With 6 in 10 job seekers (62%) reporting that including a salary range in a job posting is the most important driver for deciding whether to apply for a position, employers are primed to act. READ MORE

US executive pay bucked falling stock market in 2022

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Moderna, Simon Property Group and Marriott are among at least 107 S&P 500 companies that gave their chief executives pay increases last year even as their shares declined, according to regulatory disclosures. More than a third of S&P 500 companies awarded executives more pay for 2022 than in 2021 even though they had negative total shareholder returns last year, according to a preliminary analysis of regulatory findings conducted by ISS Corporate Solutions (ICS) for the Financial Times. READ MORE

US Women Now Make as Much or More Than Men in Half of Marriages

In almost half of opposite-sex marriages in the US, women now earn at least as much or more than their husbands.

Nearly one-third of wives earn roughly the same amount as their husbands, while the woman is the primary or sole breadwinner in 16% of marriages, according to a Pew Research Center report released Thursday. Combined, that’s a record high and a threefold surge from 50 years ago, when four in five households relied primarily on the man’s income. READ MORE

Supreme Court decides when an executive salary isn’t

Everyone knows what it means to say an executive receives a salary. But it can be surprisingly hard to give legal definitions to everyday words. That’s because the law’s goal isn’t to capture the meaning of the words but rather to create a system of classification that allows the whole universe of possibilities to be divided into only two groups, those that meet the definition and those that don’t. READ MORE

Is It Still Safe To Exchange Wage and Other Compensation-Related Information?

Since the mid-1990s, human resource (HR) professionals (and those advising them) have relied on the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) “antitrust safety zone” articulated in Statement 6 of the Statements of Antitrust Enforcement Policy in Health Care (1996 Statements). Statement 6 provided a degree of comfort that they would unlikely violate antitrust laws when participating with competitors in surveys exchanging competitively sensitive information (wages and other compensation-related information, for example) if they complied with certain “conditions”–“absent extraordinary circumstances.”  READ MORE

Here's the average salary each generation says it needs to feel 'financially healthy

As the global COVID-19 pandemic rages on, another “health” crisis has been plaguing the U.S.

Almost 4 in 10 Americans say they feel “financially unhealthy,” as prices remain high after a year of record-breaking inflation. However, how much you think you need to get financially well may depend more on what year you were born than how much is sitting in your bank account. READ MORE

Students from this Ivy League school earn the highest salaries—and it’s not Harvard or Yale

There are plenty of reasons to attend an Ivy League institution if you’re one of the lucky students to be admitted. The eight famed colleges consistently earn top honors on various rankings, based on factors like academics and career outcomes. 

Attending an Ivy may also help you earn a high salary. The University of Pennsylvania in particular reports the highest median incomes among former attendees who received federal aid. Data shows 10 years after starting at Penn, federal aid recipients earn a median salary of $103,246 annually. READ MORE

What are the common challenges and pitfalls of offering equity compensation to remote and global teams?

Equity compensation is a form of non-cash reward that gives employees a stake in the company's future success. It can be a powerful tool to attract, retain, and motivate talent, especially in competitive and innovative industries. However, offering equity compensation to remote and global teams can also pose some challenges and pitfalls that need to be carefully considered and addressed. In this article, we will explore some of the common issues and risks that arise when designing and implementing equity compensation plans for distributed and diverse workforces. READ MORE

Accountants’ Salaries Are Rising, but It May Not Add Up to More Accountants

The salaries offered to U.S. accountants and auditors last year climbed at their quickest pace in recent years, but industry observers say increasing pay alone may not be enough to remedy a national shortage of accountants.

Fewer people are pursuing degrees in accounting and starting new jobs in this area, resulting in more open positions for related roles and searches that take longer to complete. Accounting and auditing jobs have been long viewed by people in the profession as underpaid, undervalued and less dynamic than positions in tech, investment banking and private equity.  READ MORE

Does the SEC’s New PVP Disclosure Facilitate Shareholders’ Assessment of Pay for Performance Alignment?

The SEC released its final version of the rules mandated by Dodd-Frank regarding the disclosure of pay versus performance (PVP) on August 25, 2022. Since then, thousands of calendar-year U.S. companies have been working diligently to prepare the required information for their 2023 proxies, including compensation actually paid (CAP), a new definition of compensation that is intended to demonstrate the potential value of total pay that has been or may be received by proxy-named executive officers. Importantly, many of the components included in the SEC’s definition of CAP are highly contingent on future financial performance and stock price and do not reflect compensation actually received during the year. READ MORE

Appetite to claw back compensation for failed bank executives grows

The idea that regulators need to more sharply punish the executives of failed banks has attracted some powerful promoters in the last few weeks, notably President Joe Biden and a bipartisan group of senators in the Senate Banking Committee. 

That's traction that the executive compensation issue hasn't seen in years, experts say. In the wake of the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank failures, a number of reports have pointed to stock sales and bonuses of the executives of both banks that have rankled policymakers and the public, giving both Republican and Democratic lawmakers the political impetus to write and support legislation that would pull those rules back.  READ MORE

A compensation equity expert dissects what it takes to close the pay gap at any organization

Lucy Brewster here, filling in for Sheryl today and tomorrow. It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same.

That may be a cliché, but it’s certainly true when it comes to the persistent pay gap. In 2002, American women earned roughly 80 cents for every dollar earned by a man, according to data from the Pew Research Center. In 2022, two decades later, that metric was 82 cents to a dollar. In 2022, Black women earned 70% as much as white men, and Hispanic women earned 65% as much. READ MORE