David Novak is the chief executive of Yum! Brands, the parent company that runs Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC. Last year, while Yum! Brands and other restaurant companies lobbied against raising the minimum wage, Novak made at least $22 million—more than 1,000 times what the average fast-food worker makes in a year. In return for paying him so much, Yum! got a tax break.
This week, Apple loudly touted its fealty to environmentalism, rolling out an updated website on what it's doing to be a greener company and playing up its progress in reducing its carbon footprint and removing toxins from its products. This blitz included expensive full-page newspaper ads in places like the Wall Street Journal.
Apple, of course, is just one of many companies that has put a lot of effort into improving its environmental record. Most famously, Walmart has been talking this talk since 2005.
In response to yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling, which upheld a Michigan state law banning the consideration of race or ethnicity as a factor among state college admissions, Demos President Heather McGhee issued the following statement:
The country should be recommitting to diversity and inclusion, not retreating.
The news has not been kind to the fast food industry over the past few years. From labor strikes to claims of wage theft, companies like McDonald's and Burger King have taken increasing criticism for treatment of workers and their low wage jobs. Now a new report from New York-based think tank Demos has added fuel to the fire.
The recent op-ed from NAACP LDF president Sherrilyn Ifill on the recent McCutcheon ruling is a must read. In it, she implores us to focus in on the “devastating aspect” of Chief Justice John Roberts's majority opinion ruling as summarized in his opening sentences:
"There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders.
(New York, NY) – Today, national public policy organization Demos will release a new report examining the latest CEO-to-worker compensation ratios of the largest publicly traded fast food companies and shows that the fast-food industry has the greatest pay disparity in our economy, with ratios exceeding 1,000-to-1.
(New York, NY) – As shareholders prepare for annual meetings, Demos released a new study today that finds that the fast-food industry has the greatest CEO-to-worker pay disparity in our economy, with ratios exceeding 1,000-to-1. The study finds that the growing disparity within fast-food threatens economic growth and shareholder investment.
David Novak, the CEO of YUM! Brands, which owns Taco Bell and KFC, took home more than $22 million last year after exercising stock options, according to proxy statements. The average full-time fast-food worker, by comparison, would have made about $19,000 on the year. [...]
Fast food CEOs were paid more than 1,200 times the average fast food worker in 2012, according to a new study released Tuesday by Demos, a public policy group.
On a conference call to discuss the report New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer said such a wide income disparity could affect the city's pension fund, which holds millions of shares in several fast food companies. And it could trickle down to affect every day New Yorkers, he said. [...]
Fast-food restaurants are serving up plenty of food for discussion in the debate over income inequality.
Fast-food chief executives take home $1,000 for every $1 dollar earned by their average workers, making it the most unequal sector within the U.S. economy, according to a new report from public policy group Demos.
Shantel Walker has been working on and off for Papa John’s pizza since she was in high school. The 32-year-old New York City resident says that over her 15 years at a Brooklyn outlet of the Louisville, Ky.-based pizza chain, she’s received only two raises that weren’t mandated by federal or state minimum wage hikes. Today she makes $8.50 an hour, 50 cents above the New York State minimum wage, but her employer doesn’t currently use her more than 24 hours a week.
Is reducing inequality a lost cause? It can sure feel that way given what's happened in the past few decades: Like two billion new workers showing up in the global economy ready to work at a fraction of the pay of American workers. Or advances in technology and communications allowing corporations to easily shift production and back office operations anywhere -- or to just replace human beings altogether.
Capital is triumphant, labor is weak, inequality is inevitable.
Vishaan Chakrabarti has a great op-ed yesterday that asks a question that we've asked here before: Why does our government so heavily subsidize the suburbs when urban living makes more sense: environmentally, economically, and culturally?
A sudden change of fortune for 32,400 Detroit pensioners in the city’s historic bankruptcy — from the threat of draconian pension cuts to a modest reduction in lifetime benefits — could face mathematical scrutiny as the case proceeds, experts say.
In just 10 months, Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has gone from offering pensioners double-digit percentage reductions in benefits to potentially settling for baseline cuts of as little as 4.5 percent.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes last week approved an agreement that has the city of Detroit paying $85 million to escape a disastrous interest-rate swap deal with two banks.
Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, for one, applauded the decision.
“Today’s ruling is a victory for Detroiters that will help the city reinvest in the services it provides its residents and businesses,” Orr said in a prepared statement. “We’re making good progress in reaching consensual resolutions with our creditors and stakeholders.”
It is indeed remarkable that the Detroit’s Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has agreed that existing pensioners can receive virtually all of their retirement benefits in a startling settlement proposal. Police and fire will receive their entire amounts (minus a portion of cost of living adjustment) while other former employees will receive 96 percent (minus all cost of living). This is quite a distance from the 5 percent and 26 percent haircuts previously threatened.
