To think bosses are paid too much

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

Or people are paid too little relative to one another

The pay gap report has found CEO's of FTSE 100 companies are paid 148 times more than their average workers. 175 times more than the average salary.

This has changed. In 1980 it was between 6 and 44 times. Even In 1998 it was 47 times. Our economy and the companies were more successful then so pay does not reflect success or trickle down to the rest of the economy.

John Lewis cap it at 1:75

AIBU to think this needs some sort of legislation? It needs fixing. Or at least revising.

Article here:

www.theguardian.com/business/2014/aug/18/pay-gap-grows-ftse-bosses

I agree it is incredibly complicated, but it is not right that such a small %age of population has such large %age of the money. Not when we have so many being fed by food banks etc

We're talking about annual £millions from FTSE companies here, aren't we? Not people who earn £250K in a business they built themselves. Those guys really aren't worth it. They'd all work for a quarter of that.

Basics are for an unskilled assistant post,hundreds apply.hundreds capable of role
For a senior post,it's more skilled,niche and you need to pay appropriately to get applicant
As if yiu don't remunerate appropriately good candidate won't apply.they'll look elsewhere that pay well

No add, they wouldn't work at all. Their talents would be list to the economy.

That is the point.

Lost

Their talent wouldn't necessarily be lost,they'd just chose whom to work for.and salary would be factor

Their talents would be lost to the economy? Diddums. We're surely going to miss the kind of "talent" that causes a bank to massively overextend, crash and bring the global economy down with it.....

Hahahaha - 'talents lost to the economy'. Do you know these guys? If they were the type to quit they'd have done it at the first million. They work because that's what keeps them ticking.

And they aren't that talented. Seriously, that's the deluded part.

Steeleye - for most people, particularly with families, earning below the national average salary, an increase of, say, £3000pa is only going to translate into a real terms increase of less than £1000. They will, however, be paid less in tax credits and housing benefit, so that increase would do a lot to take the pressure off those systems. That small increase might make the difference to the choice between heating and eating, though.

Also, wage increases for the lowest paid usually flow straight back into the economy, either as tax or as increased consumer spending. Not so for the high flyers carefully funnelling their goodies into offshore savings accounts....

A PP said they didn't think anyone could possibly be worth more than £150k. With respect, that demonstrates very little knowledge of what realistic pay is for quite a wide range of jobs. Yes those jobs generally require a high level of education and a fair bit of experience but £150k in London for say a lawyer or a reasonably senior manager in a pharmaceutical company etc etc is nothing out of the ordinary.

I agree it is a lot of money but there are plenty of people earning that sort of money in the south-east and not living a lavish lifestyle.

Bullshit do management jobs require a high level of education. What about those of us who have the highest level of education it is possible to achieve in the UK, but are still forced to work for sub-median wages by the lack of available work?

OP, YANBU. There are plenty of equally talented and able people who would work for a reasonable wage- let those with less experience but more humility take over and I would guarantee things would be run more in the interests of humanity, rather than by grabby, spoiled, perspectiveless bastards as they are now.

YABU. In the same way surgeons shouldn't be paid the same as Dustmen.

So in 1998 bosses were only 44 times as good as their lowest paid worker but now they are 145 times as good as their average worker?

This seems a tiny bit unlikely.

Ok. Woodlice your post has just confirmed my suspicions about the likely standard of debate on this thread.

I could make a number of points such as (1) your post completely ignores the impact of market forces (2) I made no comment to the effect that management jobs require a high level of education (3) having a PhD (which I assume is what you meant by the highest level of education available in this country) is not necessarily an indicator of ability to do a job.

But what is the point when others are just out to rant?

Bedtime .

I don't think most people on here are saying everyone should be paid exactly the same or that increased stress / responsibility / ability isn't worth more. Just that the proportions of 100 + : 1 are over inflated.

It doesn't matter if you talk about increasing pay for the poorest or lowering it for the richest - just that a smaller gap would be better or fairer.

I don't think it's true really that there's only a tiny number of people who are capable to fill executive roles - it's true there are only small numbers who've had the correct mix of jard work / luck / talent / contacts to get those roles but honestly if all company executives were wiped out in a freak accident I'm pretty sure other people would manage to fill their jobs eventually. No one is irreplaceable. So I doubt it would actually be doomsday if we did cap salaries.

I think it would be nice as a proportion system - company is doing well, boss wants a rise - everyone gets a rise. I can't figure the economic impact really because I don't know enough about it.

I do remember reading that as a happiness measure a smaller gap between the most and least wealthy is society is generally pretty positive.

*hard work

no idea what jard work is but I'm not an executive

This is a tricky one, isn't it?

Of course it's blatantly unfair that bosses (who need their workers in order to succeed) are paid so disproportionately more. Quite a lot more is fair, but things have got so completely ridiculous, and socially divisive.

On the other hand, in a free market economy, if you want the best manager (and the workers need the best manager possible), then you have to pay whatever the going rate is.

Blame the system, blame the government, blame capitalism as a concept... but there's no point blaming the individual managers or individual companies. That's just the market for you

(Btw, my mum was a spectacularly good headteacher, the sort that turned failing schools around - she got paid what seemed like a huge wage compared to what we grew up with when she was training, but she changed the lives of so many children, supported so many stressed-out teachers, did a really good job - I worked in some of her schools incognito - and was doing 90 hours+ every week because she couldn't bear to walk away from something that needed doing well. She would have done it for half the money, because that's the kind of person she was, but she did deserve her pay packet, and if that kinf of renumeration is what it takes to attract the best headteachers, for the good of the children and young people, then so be it!)

Well said Mandatorymongoose

Yes it seems that many bosses are overpaid but some really do earn it. Trying to 'fix this' with regulation would be counter productive. Companies have many overheads and it costs far more than just the wage bill to employ people. Forcing an increase in wages will just lead to a reduction in staff numbers to keep the wage bill down. Forcing bosses to be paid no more than 10 times that of the lowest worker will increase the wage of the lowest paid worker but reduce the wages of those in between and also lead to redundancies to keep the wage bill down. It may not be fair but that's the system.

The justification for high salary is talent,leadership,added value to organisation I don't grudge a talented manager their salary

The problem is that managers make huge cash even if there company is failing. They get plush contracts, their company's stock goes down and they leave with a golden handshake, and that's after scores of people have lost their jobs.

There should not be a hard limit however. it will have all sorts of perverse effects. Shareholders are supposed to put the breaks on over the top pay for managers but they aren't. I don't know the right solution.

Forcing an increase in wages will just lead to a reduction in staff numbers to keep the wage bill down

That's the argument Republicans use against increasing the minimum wage in the US.

Turns out that states where the minimum wage has been raised have also seen increased employment.

Thing is, lumping all 'bosses' together is silly; there is a broad spectrum of people who fall into the category of 'Boss'.
The 'Boss' who lives here left the house at 7 this morning, and just got home at 23.30. Not an unusual day. Tomorrow will bw much the same. And no, he is not inefficient. These hours come with the job.
I think he is underpaid.

It's supply and demand. There are very few people able to run large organisations, and if they don't perform for a couple of quarters they get fired and you whole career can be lost. Individuals who can do it operate in a global market where they make many, many times more money than they cost and can command high levels of remuneration.