Summary
A survey by the High Pay Centre found that 55% of respondents support capping CEO pay to maintain a fair balance between workers and bosses.
The thinktank also recommends giving workers the right to vote on company boards and increasing transparency about top pay.
The UK government is under pressure to address income inequality, which has grown by 1.3% in 2022, with the poorest 20% experiencing a 3.4% reduction in disposable income while the richest 20% saw a 3.3% increase.
Thats fair enough but, for me, the problem is that one of the many things that are highly valuable is a CEO thats very good at paying everyone below them as little as possible, to maximise wealth extraction by shareholders. Valuable to who?
Of course, youd be right to say that how business works but I think its unfair to use the paygap they’re incentivised to make as justification of the paygap its self. By far and away, most of the people in the world work for their money.
Personally, I have mixed feelings about this. I don’t really care if someone who works harder than me and or was more successful having a bigger house and a faster car etc. I don’t think those things matter as much to me and the incentive can, potentially, be put to really wholesome uses. To me, the only question is “how much more?”
The problem is the people who don’t work for their money and just own for it instead. Not that you’ve said either way but they dont necessarily and very often don’t work harder, have more experience or more responsibilities. Once you’re wealthy enough, you can have nearly all of that taken care or for you.
Personally, I agree with it in the sense of at least the CEOs are working and there are bigger problems.