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Comment by ummonk | Hacker News Reader

Almost none. If you split the CEO pay across all the mass of workers, it won’t come out to much.

In absolute terms perhaps. But $20 per week extra would be significant in relative terms to many workers.

Exactly, small increments of money like that can mean all the difference. It can be enough to stop worrying about paying the power bill, to buy enough healthy food for dinner, or to save up more easily to get the car fixed.

> If you split the CEO pay across all the mass of workers, it won’t come out to much.

I agree that if you split the CEO pay it does not affect so much the employees.

I just wanted to highlight is that the CEO does NOT want the employees in the board as they may see the CEO's salary as unfair. So, to protect his own salary, the CEO keeps employees out of the structures of power.

Then we can argue if is that lack of power the one that keeps or not workers salaries low. But workers are not represented becuase is against the CEO best interest so her own salary can grow unchecked.

On the same lines, if you take little from each worker and give it to the CEO, its worth a lot to one individual.

What if you raised the workers' wage rather than reducing the CEO pay?

If it's a high margin business (e.g. Apple), that will help the workers a lot, while depressing shareholder returns.

If it's a low margin business, it will go bankrupt.

Note that in the past several years, shareholders have experienced massive returns due to rising corporate profits, largely because corporations have held workers' wages stagnant throughout the economic recovery/boom.

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