As you know by now, I don’t like raising big problems without offering big potential solutions.
The big problem I want to talk about today is that CEO pay has become utterly untethered from reality.
When I was a young man in the 1960s and ’70s, CEOs typically made 20 to 30 times the pay of their workers. That was enough to reward leadership, but not so much as to distort the entire economy and alienate workers who could still aspire to the American Dream.
Today, the gap between CEO pay and the pay of average workers has exploded. The average CEO at a major corporation now takes home nearly 300 times what their employees earn.
In some cases, the disparity is so grotesque it defies belief. For example:
- Walmart’s CEO raked in $27.4 million last year — 930 times the median Walmart worker’s $29,469 salary.
- Coca-Cola’s CEO made $28 million — nearly 2,000 times what the average Coke worker earned ($14,144).
- Starbucks’ CEO pocketed $95.8 million in 2024 — almost 3,000 times the typical barista salary of $32,000. (By the way, I urge you to boycott Starbucks until they agree to a first contract with their striking baristas.)
- Tesla just approved a nearly $1 trillion pay package for Elon Musk — the world’s richest man (except for on Sept. 10, 2025, when Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s net worth briefly surpassed his). This pay package would make Musk the first trillionaire in history.
The problem isn’t just these ridiculous sums. It’s also what’s happening to ordinary workers.
Undervaluing their labor while overvaluing the labor of CEOs has fueled resentment, anger, disillusionment, and fear — creating conditions ripe for a demagogue to exploit. This is what helped give rise to Trump.
The yawning gap between the wealth of executives and the everyday people who generate that wealth is beyond obscene. The American people agree: A staggering 62 percent support setting caps on CEO pay relative to worker pay.
CEOs aren’t worth nearly what they’re raking in. They get these pay packages because they’ve rigged their boards to award them.
They’ve also linked their pay to their corporations’ stock prices — and they cash in when their corporations buy back their stock to pump up share prices.
It’s immoral. Even Pope Leo has noted these concerns: “CEOs that 60 years ago might have been making four to six times more than what workers receive, the last figure I saw, it’s 600 times more.”
Referring to Musk, the Pope continued: “What does that mean and what’s that about? If that is the only thing that has value anymore, then we’re in big trouble.”
So, what do we do about this? How can outrageous CEO pay be stopped?
The best idea I’ve heard comes from Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who have introduced the “Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act.”
Under it, companies would pay higher taxes when the ratio of the pay of their CEO to their typical worker exceeds 50-to-1.
- If it exceeds 50-to-1, the corporation pays an additional 0.5 percent tax
- If it exceeds 100-to-1, the corporation pays an additional 1 percent tax
- If more than 200-to-1, a 2 percent tax
- If more than 300-to-1, a 3 percent tax
- If more than 400-to-1, a 4 percent tax
- If more than 500-to-1, a 5 percent tax
So, if Tesla’s board approves Musk’s staggering $975 billion pay package, Tesla would owe up to $100 billion more in taxes over the next decade.
It won’t be easy to get this idea implemented, given all the corporate and CEO money now polluting our politics. But if my guess is correct, we’re about to witness a giant backlash against Big Money in politics. If so, this idea has a chance, especially after the midterm elections.
Don’t wait. Please call your members of Congress today and tell them to support the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act. (To reach Congress via the Capitol Switchboard, dial (202) 224-3121, and ask the operator to connect you to your specific Representative’s or Senator’s office, by name or office.)
Thanks for demanding an economy that works for working people — and not just the wealthy few at the top.
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