John F. Bridgers: Chancellors and CEOS

Regarding the Nov. 3 news article “12 chancellors get 8%-19% pay raises”: What is occurring in higher education’s administrator salaries reflects a nationwide trend to overcompensate CEOs in the private sector and top administrators in the public sector while keeping working-class wages and salaries stagnant.

While the UNC chancellors’ salaries pale in comparison with those of our top corporate CEOs, whose boards reward them with multimillion-dollar salaries and additional millions in stock options, the rationale for their compensation is always the same: We must keep up with our competition to attract and maintain the top talent.

The UNC chancellors must feel like paupers when comparing their compensation with corporate CEOs, but at least they have the chance to join the country’s growing number of one million millionaires by receiving generous yearly raises.

“Keeping up with the Joneses” doesn’t help the average U.S. worker, however, because their wages have remained stagnant since the 1980s. By granting little or no raises to their workers, employers are just going along with the prevailing wage trends of our times.

Meanwhile, the income gap in the country continues to widen and our political parties and Congress are not advocating any new tax policies to halt or reverse this trend.

This story was originally published November 5, 2015 at 3:56 PM with the headline "John F. Bridgers: Chancellors and CEOS."