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CEOs & their corporate structures driving Income Inequality

Published: Sept. 15, 2015, 3:06 a.m.

I'm rejoined by Leo Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers Union (USW).

We discuss how CEOs and their corporate structures are driving Income Inequality.
The growth of income inequality is largely a result of a CEO compensation system where pay is determined by the value of stock. It is an incentive system that extracts wealth from a company as opposed doing the things that makes a company stronger for the future – capital investment, research and development, and maintaining a skilled workforce by paying good wages and benefits to those delivering the company’s service and/or products.

From 1978 to 2013, CEO compensation, inflation-adjusted, increased 937 percent, a rise more than double stock market growth. This is also substantially greater than the 10.2 percent growth in a typical worker’s compensation over the same period. (EPI study: http://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-continues-to-rise/)

You can follow Leo Gerard on Twitter @USWblogger and check out the USW's website at www.USW.org.