As always, each side of the "aisle" over does the rhetoric. This message about CEO pay will be one of the sides main dish in 2016.
The Wall St Journal puts this public relations campaign in a bit of perspective...
"The AFL-CIO calculated a pay gap based on a very small sample—350 CEOs from the S&P 500. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 248,760 chief executives in the U.S. in 2013.
The BLS reports that the average annual salary for these chief executives is $178,400, which we can compare to the $35,239-per-year salary the AFL-CIO uses for the average American worker. That shrinks the executive pay gap from 331-to-1 down to a far less newsworthy number of roughly five-to-one.
Of course, it’s true that some chief executives heading large multinational companies do command impressive seven- or eight-figure compensation packages. But the data don’t support the rhetorical claim that this slice of the “economic pie” is what’s driving stagnant pay for others on staff."
They go on and give a real life example using YUM brands, the corporate owner of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC to name 3 of their companies.
"The company’s 2013 annual report indicates that it employs 539,000 people, 86% of whom work part-time. If the executive team were able to redistribute 25% of their salaries, incentive pay and stock options to these part-timers, the net impact on hourly pay would be just over a penny-per-hour raise before taxes.
Even if the executive team took a 100% pay cut and distributed the money equally to the company’s 463,000 part-timers, hourly wages would only rise by five cents."
And they conclude the article....
"The point is not that CEOs deserve more money, or less. If an executive is underperforming, the corporation’s board can and should adjust his pay appropriately or terminate his employment. And if the CEO is making the shareholders rich, the board might increase his compensation. But neither voters nor policy makers should make poorly informed decisions about redistributive public policies based on a faulty understanding of how much executives are paid and why entry-level employees aren’t paid more."
Mark Perry and Michael Saltsman: About That CEO/Employee Pay Gap - WSJ
The point is, not matter the issue....does not matter. If you are going to have an intelligent discussion of that issue, you must give context to that discussion or it means nothing whatsoever.