MaryJane Selgrade: Put CEO pay in the mix

It was refreshing to read Peter Georgescu’s Aug. 11 column “Capitalists and the crisis of inequality.” It is good to know that business leaders recognize how serious the consequences of the current income inequality in this country could be, and that they are in a position to do something about it.

The article does a good job of describing the problem and suggesting potential corporate actions to address it, and suggested that the government could provide tax incentives to businesses to pay more to employees making less than $80,000. He also suggested that the consequence of doing nothing could be “oppressive taxes on incomes over $500,000 or worse yet major social unrest.”

But there was one glaring omission. Surely one of the biggest examples of “excessive greed” in today’s culture is the annual multimillion-dollar compensation packages that many CEOs receive. I suggest that along with incentives the government needs to institute some disincentives.

We could help to pay for the suggested incentives by imposing “oppressive taxes” on these CEO compensation packages. One way or another, more money would end up in the types of corporate actions Georgescu is suggesting.

This story was originally published September 1, 2015 at 4:38 PM with the headline "MaryJane Selgrade: Put CEO pay in the mix."