Executive pay has risen dramatically—both in absolute terms and in relation to median wages—across the last generation. The spike in executive salaries is both a key driver of inequality at the top end of the income spectrum (about half of the “1 percent” are executives or managers at non-financial firms) and a symbolic marker of social norms in our “winner-take-all” economy. Conservative economists have tried to spin this as a triumph of market forces, manifesting the ability of superstar innovators to pull away from the pack in a global, wired economy.
David Novak is the chief executive of Yum! Brands, the parent company that runs Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC. Last year, while Yum! Brands and other restaurant companies lobbied against raising the minimum wage, Novak made at least $22 million—more than 1,000 times what the average fast-food worker makes in a year. In return for paying him so much, Yum! got a tax break.
No less a capitalist than Henry Ford believed in paying his workforce enough so that the men who built his cars could buy his cars too. At McDonald’s, employees are encouraged to apply for food stamps if they aren’t making enough to eat.
If you want a glimpse of super-sized pay inequality, look no further than America’s fast-food industry.
Nowhere is company-level pay disparity more apparent than in fast food, where CEOs reportedly take home $1,000 for every $1 earned by their typical employee.
Here's a quick question about your retirement savings: When was the last time you checked the fees on your 401(k)?
If you're like most Americans, chances are you're not sure what exactly your plan is charging you. Even though employers are now required to disclose more information about 401(k) fees, only about half of workers said they actually noticed the data, while just 14 percent made changes after reviewing the information, according to a 2013 study from the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
Domino’s Pizza boss J Patrick Doyle is getting too large a slice of the pie, shareholders will tell the company’s board at the fast food chain’s annual meeting on Tuesday.
The two largest shareholder advisory groups, ISS and Glass Lewis; CalSTRS, California’s $183bn teachers’ pension fund; and Change to Win investment group, which advises trade union-sponsored pension funds, have all voiced concerns about compensation at the pizza company ahead of Tuesday’s annual shareholder meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
On a crisp and sunny morning on the day after Thanksgiving, a group of protesters gathered in front of a large Walmart in Michigan’s Sterling Heights, calling for wage increases and better working conditions for the superstore's employees. Mary Johnson, a retiree and member of international activist group the Raging Grannies, stood next to Dan Lombardo, a plumber wearing old-fashioned overalls, who was carrying a sign stating “Walmart equals poverty.” Mothering Justice founder Danielle Atkinson, in a vibrant purple coat, turned up with her entire family.
A grand canyon of inequality exists between fast food CEOs and the workers who make their corporate and personal fortunes. In the past decade, fast-food CEOs’ wages have increased more than 400 percent, while workers wages increased 0.3 percent, according to a new report by Demos.
Paul Ryan triggered a firestorm of recrimination this week. Speaking recently on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America radio program, the Wisconsin Republican and self-styled budget wonk linked poverty to “this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work.”
While attention focuses on Paul Ryan’s remarks about inner city culture, another dog-whistle theme continues its slow roil: food stamp abuse. More even than Ryan’s twisting narrative, the brouhaha around food stamps helps make clear that conservatives seek to conjure a much bigger bogeyman than “lazy” minorities.
Our political class is feuding about whether Rep. Paul Ryan is a racist. Rather than fearing that this donnybrook degrades political discourse, we should welcome it.
Ryan sparked the controversy when he blamed poverty on “a tailspin of culture” in our “inner cities,” while invoking for support Charles Murray, notorious for postulating the genetic inferiority of blacks. Within hours, Rep. Barbara Lee rebuked Ryan for launching “a thinly veiled racial attack.”
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, East Egg represents inherited wealth and privilege, while West Egg represents wealth earned through innovation and hard work, a distinction at the core of the American ideal. We have always embraced a dynamic capitalism, marked not by stasis but rather “creative destruction,” lionizing trust-busters as heroes of competition.
On this Mother’s Day congratulations to Arisleyda Tapia, the hardworking mom of 5-year-old Ashley, are in order. And not only because this Dominican immigrant is the mother of a beautiful little girl, but because she has courageously joined the fight for justice for herself, and hundreds of thousands of other endlessly exploited fast food workers.
Fast food workers have held one-day strikes across the United States on different occasions the past few years, but on Thursday, they are taking their operation global. Their demand: a $15-an-hour wage. The strikes will take place in 150 cities across more than 30 countries as part of the 'Fight for Fifteen' movement.
On Thursday, the fast-food strikes that have been spreading around the country are going global. Workers at restaurants like Burger King, McDonald's, Wendy's, and KFC are walking off their jobs in 230 cities around the world to demand a minimum wage of $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation. Strikers will protest in 150 US cities, from New York to Los Angeles, and in 80 foreign cities, from Casablanca to Seoul to Brussels to Buenos Aires.
This Mother's Day, Shanesha Taylor, a 25-year old homeless and unemployed mother, will be fighting for her freedom and to keep her family together just for the simple crime: trying to feed her children. Without childcare or family support, Shanesha left her children, ages two and six-months, in a parked car while she was in a job interview. In that 45-minute window, a passerby reported her unsupervised children to the Scottsdale, Arizona police who promptly arrested her on felony charges for child abuse.
On Thursday, fast-food workers around the world will stage an unprecedented protest for fair wages. They will be speaking out against income inequality -- and the world would do well to listen. Income inequality is one of the most destructive forces in the United States today. Minimum-wage workers devastated by the economic crash of 2008 have continued to languish in poverty while the subsequent recovery has sent executive compensation soaring.
Fast-food workers and labor organizers are planning a strike of global proportions Thursday, based on the premise that low-wage occupations should still be “living wage” occupations. In the US, Thursday’s date – May 15 – carries numerical significance, as actions in as many as 150 cities aim to win a pay raise to at least $15-an-hour from restaurant chains in the industry, as they also push to unionize the companies.
You may think that if you spend wisely you’ll be able to avoid huge amounts of credit card debt. But those who have this debt not only spend more frugally than those without it, they actually got into the debt in the first place because of hardships out of their control, not due to unwise budgeting, according to a report from the think tank Demos.