Summary: CEO pay dipped in 2022 but remains enormous compared with the pay of other workers. CEOs are granted massive compensation packages by corporate boards because of their bargaining power, not because of their skills. CEOs’ exorbitant payouts have far outpaced the pay of typical workers over decades.
They are using the term “Private-sector production/nonsupervisory workers annual compensation” which has a number of $58,680 for 1978??? Table is about a third of the way down the page. That seems really high. Compared to 2022 of $67,700 (which feels probably pretty close) that’s where the 15.3% comes in. I’m not really sure that makes it any clearer though but does explain why minimum wage doesn’t fit with the % change.
I’ll agree with being very surprised if the average non-supervisor worker salary was $56,680 in 1978. Running that number in a couple pages comparing what that is in today’s dollars is over $250k
Are you sure they haven’t already adjusted the 1978 figure for inflation?
They probably did. My parents combined didn’t make $50k in the 70s. They didn’t even make that by the late 80s at best. We were in the lower middle class. I’m pretty sure 50k in 78 would’ve been a lot of money. I recall the new family sedan costing about $7k in the mid 70s which works out to about $38k today… which is probably in the ball park.
That makes it $12.5k/yr ish which looks a lot more reasonable.
1978 was when baby boomers were entering their 30’s. Maybe that’s why the $58,680/yr figure sounds high. It’s my understanding that boomers made great money compared to newer generations (though I could be wrong about that; I’m no expert).