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Top Executives – Overpaid or Underappreciated?

Ethics Resource CenterJanuary 6, 2010

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How Should Executives Be Compensated?

Key stakeholders in this discussion are the employees. What do they perceive their executives are really worth?

Kenneth Feinberg, the government’s special master for executive compensation, has been grappling with this question for the top 150 executives at the top seven TARP recipient companies. He is faced

with many sides to the question:

‘Is it “fair” that executives at big companies should make 275 times…what their average employees make? Setting high tax rates for what are regarded as excessive earnings is a popular fairness remedy…’

Source: “What’s a Bailed Out Banker Really Worth?” by Steven Brill, The New York Timeshttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/magazine/03Compensation-t.html

‘Is it “fair” that executives at big companies should make 275 times…what their average employees make? Setting high tax rates for what are regarded as excessive earnings is a popular fairness remedy…’

Source: “What’s a Bailed Out Banker Really Worth?” by Steven Brill, The New York Timeshttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/magazine/03Compensation-t.html

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Perceptions of Fairness and Accountability Can Drive Employees’ Opinions About Executive Compensation

Source: ERC’s 2009 National Business Ethics Survey®

Percentage of US Workforce Who Feel Executive’s Compensation is Appropriate Based on Culture Strength (2009)