Almost one-third of wages and salaries paid in the U.S. goes to executives, according to the Wall Street Journal. "Executives and other highly compensated employees," according to the WSJ, received nearly $2.1 trillion of a total of $6.4 trillion paid in 2007 (the figures, from the Social Security Administration, exclude non-wage benefits not tallied by the agency).
According to the U.N.'s International Labour Organization, the wage gap has widened in the United States since 1995 more than in Canada, the U.K. and many other developed countries. Such growing wage gaps, says ILO Director-General Juan Somavia, are dangerous to free societies: "The legitimacy of globalization and of open economies and societies hinges critically on greater fairness in outcomes. Central to this fairness is the ability of working women and men to obtain a fair share of the wealth they create."
In the U.S., another disparity combines with the income gap to disempower rank-and-file working people: the difference between their relationship to the government and that of the larger corporations. Working people vote, but they have far less power than large corporations to influence the government between elections, and even the slates of candidates they vote for are partly determined by the way corporations invest in politics.
For example, to understand the debate about health care reform—an issue that's critical to people's personal economies—you have to know that health, pharmaceutical and insurance companies donate so much money to congresspeople (nearly $1 billion since 1990) that they actually help keep Congress, or the industry that congressional elections have become, in business. And it's not just their money; it's the agreement on goals, the lobbying, the strategizing, the interlocking relationships, the personal access to congresspeople, that working people can't compete with. Poll after poll has shown Americans favoring things (better health care coverage, more public transit, more fuel-efficient cars) that die in Congress because big business, an unelected entity with more longevity than elected officials, opposes them.
