Rewarding the CEO

The Institute for Policy Studies(IPS) has released their annual survey of executive compensation. This year they focus on companies that have laid off a significant number of workers. Do I have to tell you that IPS does not think that many CEOs of major companies have been anything but greedy? The report focuses on the 50 companies who have laid off the most workers. Consider these findings of the report:

• 72% of the firms announced their layoffs despite being profitable at the time. (Whether they would have remained profitable without the layoffs is not considered.)
• Only 2 of the 50 companies paid the standard corporate income tax rate of 35%. HP paid $47,000,000, which was 2% of pretax domestic income.
• 5 of the 50 received $3.39 billion in TARP money. Since receiving our money, Amex has laid off 4,000 and paid the CEO $16,800,000.
• The combined compensation of the 50 CEOs could have provided unemployment benefits to 37,759 workers for a year or a month of benefits for the 531,363 laid off employees.

It is not a pretty picture.