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CEO Salaries

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Out on the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton has been talking about the significant wage gap between corporate CEO salaries and the average American worker. Her comparisons are not only inaccurate, but they are a bit hypocritical. When you live in a glass house, you shouldn’t throw rocks.

First, let’s look at Hillary Clinton’s claim that corporate CEOs earn 300 times more than their workers. University of Michigan professor Mark Perry did some fact checking. He found that the average CEO salary (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) is around $216,100. That is much less than the top few salaries that Hillary Clinton usually cites.

Professor Perry also found that the average worker salary is $48,920. This hasn’t changed in many years. That means that the ratio between the average CEO salary and the average worker salary is not 300-to-1 but more like 4.4-to-1.

Professor Perry rightly says that this is a better apples-to-apples comparison. There were 21,550 CEOs working full-time managing a company or enterprise. He also mentions that their average salary of $216,100 is comparable to the average salary ($201,030) for an orthodontist.

Professor Perry wasn’t finished though. He discovered that when Hillary Clinton gave a speech, the Harry Walker Agency required that she be paid $275,000. Now remember, the average CEO in America makes $216,100 each year. But Hillary Clinton received $275,000 for one speech. That’s an interesting wage gap. Hillary Clinton was making more in one speech than the average CEO in America makes in an entire year.

The next time you hear about CEOs salaries and a wage gap, you might consider what some people making the charge make when they give one speech.

Viewpoints by Kerby Anderson

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