Highlights of extensive coverage of our report showing the ongoing rise in CEO pay relative to low and middle-income earners
Our research showing average FTSE 100 CEO pay jumped to £5 million in 2014, up from just £4.1 million in 2010, was widely reported in the press this week! Average CEO pay is now 183 times that of the median full-time UK worker, up from 160 times in 2010. Estimates using slightly different methodology suggest the ratio was 50 or 60:1 in the late 1990s.
The report achieved the rare feat of uniting both the Guardian and the Daily Mail, both of which featured editorials condemning the scale of executive pay awards and warning that public faith in business will be completely undermined if the proceeds of success accrue so overwhelmingly to those at the top.
David Cameron’s former speechwriter Clare Foges expanded on this theme in a comment piece for the Daily Mail. In the Spectator, former Conservative Home editor Tim Montgomerie noted that “Capitalism’s biggest enemies aren’t the Corbyns, Sanders or Pikettys. They are the apologists within capitalism and within capitalist-friendly parties who are complacent and do nothing to combat cronyism, corporate greed and inequality” while former banker Martin Vander Weyer said ‘the continuing scandal of unjustifiable executive pay will be a golden propaganda tool for the resurgent Corbynite left.’
Elsewhere in the UK, our report was covered by all the national papers including the Mirror, Independent and Daily Express. HPC Director Deborah Hargreaves featured on the Today Programme and the BBC 6pm and 10pm News. Deputy Director Luke Hildyard was on Sky News Tonight and Channel 4 News made a short infographic on the reports findings.
There was also interest from international media including Die Welt in Germany, Bloomberg in the US and even the Himalayan Times in Nepal!