The inequality gap

How much money is enough for America’s top executives? The AFL-CIO just released compensation comparisons showing the average CEO pay is now 335 times that of the average worker. The average pay for America’s CEOs in 2015 was $12.4 million, while the average employee made $36,900.  The pay gap between the boss and the worker is massive and growing. In 1980, the pay gap between CEOs and their employees was 42 times. By 1990, that grew to 107 times. Today the difference is 335 times, an absolute obscenity. How can anyone justify that disparity in light of the fact that average worker salaries have basically stagnated? While CEOs have seen their growth in compensation skyrocket, workers can’t feed their families. Americans admire and respect entrepreneurial success, but this massive increase in disparity in pay undermines the very foundations of our democracy. Democracy depends on the public’s trust in equality and opportunity for all. That trust is built on the belief that every American can better themselves with hard work and playing by the rules. The average American sees that hope fading while the rich are reaping all the wealth.

Rick Smith

Urbandale

Not uniform

Civic Skinny correctly pointed out that “Uniform” in Uniform Bar Examination does not meet the dictionary definition of  “remaining the same in all cases and at all times.” Any seventh grade boy attending parochial school in the 1960s could have told you the same thing. Not all uniforms worn by our classmates looked the same.

Mike Rowley

Clive