For a ‘Living Wage’ America, Cap the Top

The White House wants to require firms that do business with the government to pay decent wages. That could work — if we go after all pay that’s indecent. Read more . . .

household wealth

Welcome to Too Much

Dedicated to the notion that our world would be considerably more caring, prosperous, and democratic if we narrowed the vast gap that divides our wealthy from everyone else.

Most Popular Articles

Tracking Inequality

Our Plutocracy: A Sobering New Portrait
February 20, 2010

How Inequality Hurts

Wall Street’s Protection Racket: Still Rolling
February 27, 2010

Executive Pay

At Davos 2010, Tough Talk on Greed
January 31, 2010

Defective Enterprises

Wall Street’s ‘M&A Follies’: Why the Curtain Never Falls
December 14, 2009

Taxing Progressively

Not Soak the Rich, Just a Little Sprinkle
February 6, 2010

Alternate Approaches

A Democracy in Deep Disrepair
February 13, 2010

Good Reads

New

The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Us Stronger

The Spirit LevelBy every measure that matters,  relatively equal nations far outperform  nations where income and wealth concentrate at the top. This powerful new book explores these contrasts — and explains them.

Notable

Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality that Limits Our Lives

This American Library Association “outstanding title” of the year (Choice, Jan 2006) explores the price we pay for massive inequality. Now available for reading online.

Classic

The Acquisitive Society

Acquisitive SocietyBack in the 1930s, a University of Chicago project set out to list western civilization’s greatest books. Only one book by an author then living, this one, made the cut.

Quote of the Week

“Many overseas studies show crime and health statistics tend to be worse in countries that tolerate extremes of income inequality. If the minimum wage provides society with a decent floor, a maximum wage would arguably do the same thing at the top, and create a ceiling that would be within sight of all of us.”
Gordon Campbell, What about a maximum wage?, The Wellingtonian (New Zealand), March 11, 2010

Stat of the Week

Corporations are now busily reporting CEO pay totals for 2009, but take those totals with a grain of salt, cautions the Wall Street Journal. The figures now getting released value stock awards at the time of their grant. Actual rewards can run far higher. One example: Occidental Petroleum CEO Ray Irani took “expected pay” for 2008 originally valued at $58.3 million. His actual “realized” pay for the year: $222.6 million.

Greed at a Glance

A quick update on avarice in America and beyond: The jobless who have Corporate America’s sympathies . . . Why hedge fund managers seem to be exceedingly happy these days . . . Why the Welsh think they’ve found a key secret to happiness . . . The cluelessness of deficit hawks.

Executive Pay Scorecard

Top media outlets and business researchers annually release compensation surveys that detail executive pay levels over the preceding year. These surveys seldom sample the same corporations — or measure pay the exact same way — and, consequently, almost always generate somewhat different results. We sum up the top national and regional survey results here.