How come people seem to get all upset when minimum wage is to be increased, but just shrug when some CEO gets a huge bonus or increase?

Because the CEO is likely to be already wealthy, conservative and one of the socio-economic class that is getting upset about raising the minimum wage. Generally they don’t criticize their own kind.

And don’t go on saying the fat cats deserve it, they still get their bonuses after they needed the government bail out.

Because obviously the CEO is a hard worker who earned his bonus, and the minimum-wage worker is lazy/an illegal immigrant/chose their lot/a godless heathen anyway.

Who are these people that don’t care?

They get upset because they don’t understand the basic arithmetic relationship, but take some arbitrary guess at one person versus 10,000.

If a CEO gets a $25 million bonus (the top five this year were 25 million and above), that’s equal to 10,000 people getting a $1 an hour raise. But that CEO is n’t going to incase his consumer spending very much. Bu the $1 an hour paid to the 10,000 will flow right back into the economy at a very fast rate, and improve everyone’s economic picture.

@zenvelo super great answer, thanks.

@elbanditoroso there are plenty of liberal CEOs….

Everyone is so quick to go after conservatives, they skipped right over all the filthy rich democrats in politics.

Because the neocons hang on to the myth that the wealthy are the job creators. middle class demand for goods and services is what actually drives the economic engine .the more that the middle class and working poor earn means more money that gets infused back into the economy..

Because the media and government are owned by multi-billion dollar corporations, not people making minimum wage, and since most people just repeat what they hear on tv or radio, this is what we get.

Kinda funny when people blame minimum wage increases for price increases, but not a peep about inflating currency, which increases prices wayyy more than giving someone an extra $40 a week. How else do they explain all the increases in prices over the past 10 years?

@1TubeGuru ,Hi hows it going?
Great answer by the way how come a lot of people seem to fail and see that?

For the same reasons that all the “right to work” (i.e. anti-labor) movements are funded by employers with very deep pockets.

People did care when bank executives were still getting bonuses during the banking fiasco in America.

They also cared when they found out how much the CXO’s are making in the American car industry as it was going down the drain.

The primary reason is that the CEO will see to it that mention of his salary is minimized while the “sky is falling” economic devastation ALWAYS predicted upon raising the paltry minimum wage is trumpeted incessantly.

Getting some really great answers to this question,love reading them all.

@cheebdragon Many of those liberal CEOs tend to draw small salaries and leave their bonuses in the company coffers. Sure, they may take a million or two, but not 10–20 or more, and the companies they run tend to treat their workers good enough to avoid outrage. For example, Costco.
Any industry that hands out bonuses after a bailout is, at best, s PR nightmare.

Because some people think society is a collection of companies rather than people with families.

CEO pay is disgusting. They don’t work THAT much harder than most of us and while they make big costly decisions so do most of the worker bees making 50K.

@cheebdragon – there are some (a few) dems who are CEOs – I think it would be an enormous stretch to say “plenty”. I would doubt that democratic CEOS are no more than 20–30%.

@ARE_you_kidding_me $50K? I wish!

@ARE_you_kidding_me This will be the first year when my wife and I who both work full-time will have a combined income of >$41k. I think you meant a 2 instead of a 5.

@jerv Depends on where you live. Most folks I know are making between 35–60k working regular jobs like truck driving or service technicians. Middle management in large places are making more 60–120k. The thing is though that may seem like a huge gap but compared to this topic it’s chump change. People making ~50k are entry level engineers, senior technicians, accountants and first line managers. The point being is that they are making game changing decisions just like the CEOs are. So why the massive gap?

@ARE_you_kidding_me In other words, mostly white-collar or things that require fairly substantial certification/education, and thus are not for those that don’t already have a few grand saved up. Gotcha. CDLs are not free, yet are likely the cheapest entry fee of anything you mentioned. Blue-collar children of non-rich parents who are not keen on taking on massive debt have a tougher time of it. Note that the figures for median income are household figures, and the majority of households have more than 1 income?

But yes, the gap is pretty massive, and often the changes they make are absolutely senseless to anybody who has had anything to do with anything to do with the implementation of the decisions in question. At least the middle-management is close enough to where the action really is to get it at least half-right, or at least pervert the directions of their superiors to make it work. Yet who gets all the kudos and coin?

I wouldn’t call an engineer bringing home $50K a “worker bee” or a blue collar worker by any means. The gap is way bigger when comparing the actual worker bees scraping by at $10/hr or less to the CEO sitting on his ass making six figures.

I’m a college grad and just got my first “real” job making $36K and I’m thanking my lucky stars I don’t have to start at $28K like I thought I would. I’d probably pass out if I got an entry level offer at $50K.

CEO making 6 figures lol, try seven. I feel sad for the future. It was extremely hard for me to afford schooling, I worked my ass off working full-time and going to school part-time. I left grad school because of cost & I had a tuition waiver + a stipend. (I still had to work full-time to afford daily expenses) Generally the cost of living is so high that it leaves almost all of us without savings or really much disposable income at all. In the future it will be even harder for the children of blue collar parents to move into what was once white collar middle class. Those lines are coming closer together as well and eventually( like very soon) there will not even be a middle class to aspire to. W.T.H. then?

@livelaughlove21 congratulations on getting your first job! I’m sure all of your hard work is going to pay off for you.

@ARE_you_kidding_me “CEO making 6 figures lol, try seven.”

Try eight. Salaries of $20—$25 million aren’t uncommon.

OK. Most of us here agree that the growing disparity in wages is a key indicator that there are trends afoot which clip all but the rich and the slick. The big question is “are there viable remedies?” There are those who believe that the current playing field and the way things are structured is purely the result of “market forces” at work. A single word puts the lie immediately to that sort of drivel. The word is LOBBYIST, and it should come as no surprise that money is used to leverage the rules in favor of those who have it. Wealth in effect has undermined the democratic process to such an extent, that the government itself is now utilized as a means to redistribute wealth UPWARDS. THIS is the real meaning of wealth disparity and why a monster struggle erupts at the very mention of minimum wage. It doesn’t even OCCUR to those supposedly representing us that there is even a concept of a maximum wage. Those making the claim that inefficient over regulating bloated government is responsible for the miserable circumstances regarding the bulk of us, never bother to explain why it is that in such an environment, they manage to walk away with ALL of the money. It seems that the government is extremely efficient at providing for them.

@stanleybmanly “The word is LOBBYIST, and it should come as no surprise that money is used to leverage the rules in favor of those who have it.”

My husband’s a lobbyist. He lobbies for children’s rights, so he literally saves children’s lives. Children have no voices and no money, so my husband gets paid very modestly and hasn’t had a raise in 3 years. He’s constantly scraping-up donations to get pro-child candidates elected and promote children’s initiatives at every level of government.

I’ve lived most of my life inside the Beltway, so I couldn’t agree more about how corporate money and official greed have corrupted the system. I just want to make the case that “lobbyist” isn’t a four-letter word. Actually, the term now has so many ugly connotations, lobbyists have started to say that they work in “government relations” or “legislative affairs.” I’m old enough to remember when lobbying was a prestigious, desired job that made people brag at cocktail parties!

@SadieMartinPaul In the wake of people like Paul Ryan, “Republican”, “Conservative”, and “Christian” are right up there with “lobbyist” on the list of extreme vulgarities.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Precisely so. It used to be that working your ass off to get through college was both possible and allucrative investment, but no longer. The current level of disparity compares to banana republics, and is approaching POW camp levels. Maybe the French were onto something, and I think that’s about the only way the US will ever regain it’s ranking as a First World nation.

@SadieMartinPaul I do realize that there are lobbyists who advocate for noble and just causes. And I am not one bit concerned about anyone championing the rights of children even possessing the means to bribe a legislator. You and I both know that lobbyist is still a VERY desired and LUCRATIVE route to enormous enrichment for “retired” lawmakers, and believe me, these folks aren’t flocking to the industry to advocate for children, the disabled or the protection of animals. In fact I’m astonished that your husband can remain viable in the game in the midst of those with wheelbarrows of money to throw around for attention. How on earth can one operate in an environment like D.C. and maintain even even a glimmer of idealism?

@stanleybmanly ” I am not one bit concerned about anyone championing the rights of children even possessing the means to bribe a legislator.”

You got that one right. It’s more like: possessing the means to pay the office rent and make payroll. :-)

Paul may be the most idealistic person I’ve ever known. I love that about him.