By Ed Smith's math, the CEO of Walmart earns more in an hour than his employees will earn in a year.
Photo: Chicago alderman: "Sad" contrast between Wal-Mart CEO's pay and employee wages
ABC News
Chicago alderman Ed Smith has calculated that Walmart CEO Michael Duke earns more in an hour than... Expand
Chicago alderman Ed Smith has calculated that Walmart CEO Michael Duke earns more in an hour than his employees will earn in a year. Smith's numbers may be a bit off, according to an executive compensation firm, but he argues that there's still a "sad" contrast between the tens in millions of dollars Duke receives and the wages of his employees. Collapse
Smith, an alderman in Chicago, presented posters at a city council meeting showing that Walmart CEO Michael Duke's $35 million salary, when converted to an hourly wage, worked out to $16,826.92. By comparison, at a Walmart store planned for the Windy City's Pullman neighborhood, new employees to be paid $8.75 an hour would gross $13,650 a year.
Smith's numbers could be a bit off. Equilar, an executive compensation research firm, calculates that Duke earned just south of $20 million in 2009 and $28 million in 2008, not counting millions of dollars in potential performance awards. But the alderman argued that there's still a "sad" contrast between Duke's compensation and the wages of his employees.