The big rip: Low wage corporations spent half a trillion inflating CEO pay

(OtherWords.org) – Most of us believe in fair pay for honest work. So why aren’t low-wage workers better paid?After 30 years of research, I can tell you it’s not because employers don’t have the cash. It’s because profitable corporations spend that money on their stock prices and CEOs instead.Lowe’s, for example, spent $43 billion buying back its own stock over the past five years. With that sum, the chain could’ve given each of its 285,000 employees a $30,000 bonus every year. Instead, half of Lowe’s workers make less than $33,000. Meanwhile, CEO Marvin Ellison raked in $18 million in 2023.Related Stories The company also plowed nearly five times as much cash into buybacks as it invested in long-term capital expenditures like store improvements and technology upgrades over the past five years.Lowe’s ranks as an extreme example but pumping up CEO pay at the expense of workers and long-term investment is actually the norm among America’s leading low-wage corporations.In my latest “Executive Excess” report for the Institute for Policy Studies, I found that the 100 S&P 500 firms with the lowest median wages – the “Low-Wage 100” – blew $522 billion on buybacks over the past five years. Nearly half of...