Chart of the Day: CEO Pay Is Still Growing

The Wall Street Journal reports that CEO pay was up yet again last year. Here’s the chart:

Big-company CEOs have seen a median pay raise of about 40 percent since 2010. Ordinary workers have seen a pay raise of 20 percent. Adjusted for inflation, that’s 25 percent for CEOs and 5 percent for ordinary workers.

And why not? After all, CEOs have been coasting along on a long wave of good economic times, and why shouldn’t they be rewarded for that? What’s more, in 2016 they helped elect a guy who gave them a big tax cut in 2017. Why shouldn’t they be rewarded for that too?

As for ordinary workers, they coasted along too, and they also voted for the tax-cut guy. Oddly enough, no one thinks they should be rewarded for that. Go figure.

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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