Yesterday at 5:53pm · Edited ·

Among the most vocal opponents of raising the minimum wage are top corporate executives who are making increasingly multiples of the minimum. While the real value of the minimum wage has dropped 25% since 1968, the pay of CEOs at large corporations has exploded. The ratio of CEO pay to that of the average worker was 20 to 1 in 1965, 30 to 1 in 1978, 123 to 1 in 1995, 296 to 1 in 2013, and it is now over 300 to 1. Also, because much executive pay comes in the form of shares of stock and stock options, by keeping wages down corporations have been able to generate higher profits and therefore higher share prices -- which enriches top executives even more.

The issue here is not only economic. It is also political, because concentrated income and wealth at the top translates directly into political power -- power to prevent the minimum wage from increasing, for example, and to cut programs for the poor. Most fundamentally, the issue is a moral one. A decent society cannot remain decent, or a society, with the degree of inequality we're now experiencing.

The TRUTH will set you FREE.