Ethical dilemma, What would you do?
Executive Compensation
In 2017, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio was about 361:1. Oracles co-CEOs made about $25.3 million each in 2018. A minimum wage full-time employee at Walmart would have to work more than 1,500 hours to earn as much as the Walmart CEO makes in 1 hour. Some say top executives are being overpaid; Fortune 500 CEOs all make millions.
However, not everyone agrees. In capitalist countries, talented CEOs, like in pro sports, are entitled to fetch their price. Top executives should be paid multimillion-dollar compensation packages; after all, if it werent for effective CEOs, companies would not be making the millions of dollars of profits they make each year. CEOs deserve a piece of the pie they help create.
Questions to answer:
- Do executives deserve to make 300 times more than the average worker?
- Is it ethical for managers to take large pay increases when laying off employees?
- Is it ethical for managers to get pay raises when their companies lose money?
- Are companies being socially responsible when paying executives premium compensation?
Sources: Information from AFL-CIO, Executive Paywatch, (retrieved March 30, 2019); (retrieved October 31, 2018). (retrieved October 31, 2018); R. Lowenstein, Is Any CEO Worth $189,000 per hour? Businessweek (February 2026, 2012), pp. 89; R. Fisman, T. Sullivan, In Defense of the CEO, Wall Street Journal (January 1213, 2013), pp. C1C2.
