Maximum Wage

[Fooliecoolie]

There is always discussion about minimum wage but no one throws around the concept of a maximum wage. Would you support implementing a fixed amount executives can make over their lowest paid employees?

[Faroth]

I've always thought it would be interesting to see a company where the executive team makes X amount and sets forth a plan that they won't increase their pay until all employes are brought up to a certain level. Once that level is achieved, executives can get another pay increase and set a new level goal for employees.

[Gamdwelf]

This is kinda how 401ks work...I'm not opposed.

[Doctor Amadeus]

I voted yes, but it should be conditional, should you be allowed to be obscenely wealthy YES, but if you literally own more money thus more fucking resources than a small god damn country, then FUCK AND YES!

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If we are going for radical solutions I would just force executives to own stocks and only get paid in dividends.

Good idea, the problem though is you can enforce regulations and still allow people to have the choices of being obscenely wealthy the problem is when that excess causes undo hardship and impacts on others like the world.

[Dezerte]

It would help company morale, for sure.

[Manabomb]

I've always thought it would be interesting to see a company where the executive team makes X amount and sets forth a plan that they won't increase their pay until all employes are brought up to a certain level. Once that level is achieved, executives can get another pay increase and set a new level goal for employees.

That's actually how corporations are generally run in Japan. Its a beautiful system, but not without its own problems. You get a huge shortage of CEOs and other executives because very few people like taking responsibility for other people, especially when doing so directly affects your income. Not that greed isn't a foreign concept in Japan, they just have systems in place to handle greed.

[Endus]

As long as we're clear that it's tied to "total compensation", not just straight salary. Otherwise, they'll pay the executives with things like shares, bonuses, etc, which wouldn't get counted. And normalize it to an hourly rate, assuming a 40-hour workweek.

I've often supported the idea that a top executive's salary should be capped at, say, 20x what the lowest-paid employee is. So a CEO making $500,000 is paying their lowest-rung employees no less than $25,000/year (for full-time work). And if the CEO wants to bump their own salary to $750,000, they're bringing that floor up to $37,500. Still plenty of incentive to the top, plenty of room to grow your salary, but it pushes them to re-invest in their own company and its employees.

[Deleted]

Yeah, if the highest wage is bound to the lowest wage, we finally had a working trickle down.

[Heladys]

Sure. Bracket both things against cost of living. As that raises or falls, so should the windows of acceptability.

Would not apply of course to people who do not earn a wage. If you're self-employed you can make whatever you want, but as soon as you incorporate your business to give you a financial firewall and start drawing a wage, you will face the same limits as anyone else.

[Z-Man]

I've always thought it would be interesting to see a company where the executive team makes X amount and sets forth a plan that they won't increase their pay until all employes are brought up to a certain level. Once that level is achieved, executives can get another pay increase and set a new level goal for employees.

Ben and Jerrys did this. Top guy can't make more than seven times what the bottom guy gets. Top guy wants more, night janitor gets a raise.

[Elegiac]

It would be so easy to overcome any maximum wage anyway. Remuneration of top tier executives is rarely simply monetary compensation.

You can write the regulation as such that it includes total acquirable assets.

[melodramocracy]

I'd say yes, but the bigger problem (and likely one that's even easier to solve) is to redefine what's considered income. For example, you repeatedly see examples of CEO's that pull a fairly uninspiring salary, but the perks, stocks etc push that income far higher, even though it's not taxed as such.

It's difficult to buy into a scenario where you're told "this is as much as you'll ever be allowed to make from a single source of income", but the wage gap absolutely has created more problems than it's solved, primarily by artificially driving CoL's up all over the country.

[The One Percent]

When you limit someone's potential, they leave for somewhere that doesn't. You don't attract the best and brightest by telling them how high they can fly either.

[Super Kami Dende]

Nah. Capping things is silly.

[Nasuuna]

How would this work for owners who sit on large amounts of profit to expand in ways like opening an additional store


there is things that must be considered, caps like this wouldn't work

[Thetruth1400]

I've always thought it would be interesting to see a company where the executive team makes X amount and sets forth a plan that they won't increase their pay until all employes are brought up to a certain level. Once that level is achieved, executives can get another pay increase and set a new level goal for employees.

Agree. That might work for a super small mom and pop business, but only if they take the power to change those rules out of their own hands too. On a grand scale, wouldn't stand a chance thanks to good old fashion greed.

As long as we're clear that it's tied to "total compensation", not just straight salary. Otherwise, they'll pay the executives with things like shares, bonuses, etc, which wouldn't get counted. And normalize it to an hourly rate, assuming a 40-hour workweek.

I've often supported the idea that a top executive's salary should be capped at, say, 20x what the lowest-paid employee is.

Exactly. They can't get around this by taking $1 salary, but get $100 million is other "incentives."

Where they set that exec salary is debatable though. The average CEO today makes $13.8 million a year. At 20x that would mean the lowest worker would have be paid $690K a year. The average US salary is $77,800, meaning CEO pay would cap out at $1.55 million. Even at 25 times difference a CEO could be paid $2 million and the average employee would bring in $80K.


That aside, yes I'm all for a maximum wage where the top of a company can only make X amount more than their average employee. Where that amount is set, no idea, but the 200 times difference of today definitely isn't the answer. The biggest difference is Discover Communications, where the CEO makes 1,951 times the average employee which is saying something considering the median salary there is $80K.

[Underverse]

As long as we're clear that it's tied to "total compensation", not just straight salary. Otherwise, they'll pay the executives with things like shares, bonuses, etc, which wouldn't get counted. And normalize it to an hourly rate, assuming a 40-hour workweek.

I've often supported the idea that a top executive's salary should be capped at, say, 20x what the lowest-paid employee is. So a CEO making $500,000 is paying their lowest-rung employees no less than $25,000/year (for full-time work). And if the CEO wants to bump their own salary to $750,000, they're bringing that floor up to $37,500. Still plenty of incentive to the top, plenty of room to grow your salary, but it pushes them to re-invest in their own company and its employees.

This is definitely something that should be backed by everyone.

[Gamer8585]

In theory it sounds good, but trying to write legislation to that effect would be hellish and you're probably going to end up with something completely ineffective anyway. The super wealthy will just pay a CPA to do some "Hollywood Accounting" to show how their millions of dollars in income were actually a "loss".

What would better benefit the economy is means to discourage the hording of wealth. Money is only good to an economy when its moving. Taxes are the most blunt instrument, but there is a lot of push back, and legally gray business practices that attempt to get around them. Luxury goods help draw the money back into circulation, but the super wealthy are usually bringing in so much that its hard to make a dent. Some give cash away to charitable causes, but unfortunately not enough, and too much of the cash remains locked away.

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As long as we're clear that it's tied to "total compensation", not just straight salary. Otherwise, they'll pay the executives with things like shares, bonuses, etc, which wouldn't get counted. And normalize it to an hourly rate, assuming a 40-hour workweek.

I've often supported the idea that a top executive's salary should be capped at, say, 20x what the lowest-paid employee is. So a CEO making $500,000 is paying their lowest-rung employees no less than $25,000/year (for full-time work). And if the CEO wants to bump their own salary to $750,000, they're bringing that floor up to $37,500. Still plenty of incentive to the top, plenty of room to grow your salary, but it pushes them to re-invest in their own company and its employees.

Interesting idea. Sounds like all parties would benefit, but how would you control for capital gains where the super wealthy make most of their money? Most C-suite salaries are actually pretty fair. Its the stock options, and other investments, where the real money is made.

[Souflikar]

Things like this are slippery slopes, so no.

[Arewn]

When you limit someone's potential, they leave for somewhere that doesn't. You don't attract the best and brightest by telling them how high they can fly either.

The "best and brightest" wouldn't hit this wall, so that's not really a concern. Keep in mind we're talking about a percent of the population smaller then your user name.

Furthermore, top earners /= best and brightest.
I'm not saying they didn't work for it, but circumstance and nepotism are large factors. Think Mark Zuckerberg. Richest programmer in the world. Do you think he's the best programmer in the world though? Do you think he was even a particularly great programmer when he started racking it in thanks to facebook?
His platform more or less "happened" to explode, and he was in the right position to reap the benefits.