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| Tobias Photo courtesy of Harcourt |
Author and columnist Andrew Tobias (MBA 1972) discussed executive pay and American attitudes about compensation in an article in Parade magazine (March 2, 2003), for which he is personal finance editor.
Asking how much someone should be paid who runs “an outfit with 170,000 employees that’s critical to our national defense,” Tobias noted that description fits both the CEO of Boeing ($4 million annual salary, plus incentives compensation) and the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps ($169,860 annual salary). He acknowledged that “it is best left to the free market to decide” what executive compensation should be, but added that “the problem comes when the market isn’t really free, and the CEO largely sets his own pay.” He further pointed out that from 1980 to 2001, the average working person’s pay rose 74 percent, while CEO compensation climbed by 1,884 percent.
Tobias said he makes no judgment on these numbers and offers them in the spirit of debate and discussion. He concluded by citing a poll that showed that 19 percent of Americans believe they are among the richest 1 percent in the country; another 20 percent expect that they some day will be.
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