Will they continue to receive their salaries, bonuses and stock options during the coronavirus shutdown while their furlough employees have to depend on the federal government's stimulus and unemployment compensation? How many are willing to take a cut in pay to keep at least some of their employees on payroll and help out the government's generosity?
IBM announced they earned $1.18 billion in profit in the first quarter. But there was no mention of how much of those profits would be used to retain employees during this pandemic time We do know that Derek Jeter, the CEO of baseball's Miami Marlins said he would forgo any salary during the shutdown and their executive team agreed to a pay cut. Their baseball operations personnel will continue to receive full pay through at least May 31. If every CEO and executive did the same, the business community would be in a better financial condition to reopen the economy on a timely basis when the time comes.
It will be interesting to see how many companies show a loss during the pandemic but still shower their CEO's and executives with lavish increases in salaries, bonuses and stock options. The past tells it will be business as usual for them. The 14% reduction in the corporate tax rate (thanks to the Trump-GOP tax cuts) will not trickle down to the average worker who needs it the most during this pandemic.
When this pandemic is over and the economy works its way back, it will be the average worker who lost the most even though the business community had the resources to make things better for their employees if the average worker shared in the profits on an equitable basis. The Reagan, Bush and Trump tax cuts added to corporate greed and swelled the financial gap and rewards between business executives and their workers.
And as of this writing, income inequality is at its worst and wealth is still being transferred from the middle class to the wealthy.
This commentary written by Joe Lorio
