Amid Wage Disparities And Political Concerns Over Jobs, Top CEOs Bring In Beaucoup Incomes

The United States' top 500 chief executive officers took home an average of $12.4 million last year, and their earnings were approximately 340 times higher than the average worker's wages last year, according to a new report from AFL-CIO.

335:1

According to the report, production and nonsupervisory workers earned only an average of $36,875 in 2015, bringing the CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 335 to 1.

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The report said the three highest-paid CEOs were Joe Kiani of Masimo Corporation MASI at $119.2 million, Timothy Walbert of Horizon Pharma PLC HZNP at $93.3 million and Gamco Investors Inc GBL's Mario Gabelli at $88.5 million.

Job Concerns And Wage Disparities

The survey comes as jobs and wage disparity have been key points in the recent presidential campaigning. Both the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Democratic rival Bernie Sanders have criticized outsourcing blue-collar jobs to Mexico and China, the Guardian commented.

The AFL-CIO report said for every domestic job lost in the United States, the companies create nearly seven jobs overseas, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data.

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A Guardian report on the data highlighted Mondelez International IncMDLZ, which makes Oreos and Chips Ahoy!, as it has announced plans to move 600 jobs from Illinois to Mexico.

"They quit me. I didn't quit them. It used to be that places like Nabisco were proud places to work, but now workers like me are tossed to the curb despite years of dedication," the report said, quoting Mary Willis, one of the nearly 300 people laid off by Mondelez in March.

In 2015, Mondelez CEO Irene Rosenfeld received $19.67 million in total compensation and made 534 times the average nonsupervisory worker's pay of $36,865 in 2015.

Corporate Taxation

The AFL-CIO report also touched on the corporate taxes and said the effective tax rate is lower than many developed countries.

"Corporations like to complain that their federal income tax rates are too high. But lost amid the clamor to cut taxes for corporations is the fact that many U.S. corporations are not paying taxes on their offshore profits," the report highlighted.