At the end of every fiscal year corporations post large profits that run into millions of dollars. The main beneficiaries are the stockholders of these corporations and the top management staff that lead luxurious lives. The situation is however different for the workers in the lower carders of these corporations that work the hardest to create these profits because as the corporations keep growing their profits the number of Americans living below the poverty line keeps increasing.
According to Segal, whose article appeared in the New York Times, an Apple store worker sold goods worth $750,000 in a span of 3 months while receiving an hourly wage of $11.25. This hourly wage leads to an annual income of about $25,000 yet according to research “each Apple store employee brought in $473,000 last year.” (1)This points out clearly how corporations are causing inequalities in the US by paying peanuts to its hardworking staff while giving millions to its stockholders and top staff.
Segal notes that Apple’s CEO Tim Cook “received stock grants, which vest over a 10-year period that at today’s share price would be worth more than $570 million.” (1) This is on top of his large salary and many perks yet Apple employees do not even get a commission for the huge volumes of sales that they make. Though the CEO is a brilliant and hardworking man am sure that the other lower employees work just as hard and deserve better remuneration and benefits. Seeing as the lower employees cannot afford to buy stocks they are left in the vicious cycle of living from paycheck to paycheck as the shareholders and top management get richer and this is how 1% of Americans end up having 40% of the country’s wealth.
The situation can still be remedied in the case of Apple by offering employees a small commission for every sale they make so that everyone can benefit from the wealth that is being created by their hard work. It would also be prudent for the government to increase the minimum wage so as to stop corporations from taking advantage of desperate jobless Americans. This is because the profits of most corporations keep increasing every year yet the employees get very little or no raises, in the case of Apple there is a year that it offered a raise of 49 cents to its employees, that is unacceptable.
The government should also support corporations that pay their employees well as an incentive for better remuneration. This maybe in the form of tax breaks so as to encourage more equitable distribution of wealth among Americans because as it stands now a large population of Americans works very hard to produce wealth that is enjoyed by very few Americans. Apple has over 43,000 employees who work very hard to make its huge profits whose main beneficiaries are the top management. (Segal, 1)
REFERENCES
Segal, David. “Apple’s Retail Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay” The New York Times. Web. June 23 2012
