Parkland Health & Hospital System in Dallas, Texas gets it: income inequality is bad, and paying out hundreds of thousands — sometimes millions — to executives doesn’t make sense, especially when’some employees require public assistance to survive on low wages. That’s why they’re using $350,000 from the next quarter’s executive bonus pool to give 230 low-wage employees a 14 percent raise, from $8.78/hr to $10.25.
The executive pool for the last quarter was between $750,000 and $1.2 million, so it looks the raise will take a substantial chunk of the next quarter’s pool, which is intended as bonuses for the hospitals 60 executives.?Think Progress?reports the full year’s bonus pool to be between $3 million and $5 million, however, so it’s important to point out the yearly cost of the wage raise — the $350,000 — only represents seven percent to 11.6 percent of the overall pool.
Raising wages to cost-of-living level at minimum is obviously a good idea, because it removes the strain of support from the taxpayer and shifts it to where it should be — the workers’ employer. When employees aren’t paid enough, it’s the rest of us that pick up the tab, and local businesses that suffer from residents’ decreased purchasing power. If you can’t afford to pay your workers a living wage, you have no justification for the existence of your business.
It’s also good for individual businesses to pay decently even without the overall economic argument. After all, paying more than minimum wage drops turnover rates, makes the acquisition of employees with talent and work ethic easier, and increases morale, worker efficiency, and productivity. Investing in your workers is worth it. As income inequality has spiraled out of control, so has executive salary, with many companies paying executives hundreds of times more than their low-level workers.?Think Progress?sums up the stats well:
CEOs? pay is now?295.9 times the pay?for their own workers, far higher than the 87.3-to-one ratio in the early 1990s. Average pay for a chief executive last year was $15.2 million, a 21.7 percent increase over 2010, while workers saw their pay fall by 1.3 percent in the same time. Corporate profits have also?hit record highs?as workers keep?increasing their productivity, but they haven’t shared in that growth. If the minimum wage had kept up with rising productivity, it would be?nearly $22 an hour, and if it had simply kept up with inflation since the 1960s it would be?over $10 an hour. (Source)
While Republicans continue to block a national minimum wage raise, it’s nice to see some businesses, states, and cities take things into their own hands and do the right thing for workers.
Edited/Published by: SB
I’m a millennial with an attitude, and I’m tired of a left wing that has stopped being willing to rise up and fight for the rights of the people. In my short career, I’ve published hundreds of articles on many topics. You can follow me on Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or?Instagram.
