The US economy's brief moment of slowing inequality might be on its way out

Inequality has been the story of the US economy for over a decade.

While the narrative that we're living in a time of heightened inequality persists, the last few years opened up a small window in which that story had a chance to reverse. This was thanks to pre-pandemic minimum wage legislation, coupled with higher raises for lower wage workers in the tumultuous years that followed. READ MORE

Final Clawback Rules

The Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) adopted “Clawback Rules,” codified in Rule 10D-1 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The Clawback Rules require U.S. public companies to develop and adopt a recoupment policy facilitating the recovery (or “clawback”) of incentive-based compensation received by current or former executives. In accordance with Rule 10D-1 and to provide for such clawback requirements, the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) and the Nasdaq Stock Market (“Nasdaq”) each amended its relevant listing standards – the NYSE through Section 303A.14 of the NYSE Listed Company Manual and Nasdaq through Listing Rule 5608. READ MORE

How Effective Is Your Sales Compensation Plan?

If you have a sales organization, you most likely have a sales compensation plan. How confident are you that your current plan is effective at delivering the results you desire? If you are like many executives, you may be wondering what you can do to create a plan that drives sales growth and improved profitability. It is not uncommon for executives to be frustrated by the results obtained and wonder if the commission plan needs tweaking. Before you tweak your existing plan, take some time to consider the following information. READ MORE

C-Suite Salaries Are Now Subject to Cuts, as a Popular Pandemic Practice Persists

The pandemic-era pay cuts that swept across many C-suites are now a regular part of some companies’ road maps for tough times. 

Executives at technology companies such as Zoom Video Communications, Intel and Micron Technology have taken cuts to their base salary this year as their businesses trimmed spending and laid off workers. And as was the case during the pandemic, the cuts to base pay have gone beyond chief executives to include finance chiefs, operations leaders and corporate attorneys. READ MORE

Here’s the salary Americans say they need to be happy — it’s over $100,000 in 17 states

Money can’t literally buy happiness. But it can buy safety, security and experiences that make life more joyful and less stressful. 

Americans say it would take a lot of money — upwards of $230,000 a year — to feel secure, and even more — $483,000 — to feel rich, according to a recent Bankrate survey. But new data shows they may find happiness earning far less. READ MORE

Gender pay gap now the narrowest on record

America's working women were feared to suffer the worst in the pandemic recovery. The opposite, however, has proven to be the case, with women serving as historic drivers of a labor market that remains surprisingly strong.

Why it matters: The pay gap between full-time working women and male counterparts is now the narrowest on record. The dynamic has been long in the making — a reflection of discrimination's slow fade and other structural forces that have held women back on pay. READ MORE

Younger workers need more than a good salary to give their ‘loyalty, flexibility and service’

Siobhan Neela-Stock learned a painful lesson about the need for mental health support in the workplace when she found herself in the midst of an acute breakdown one morning back in August 2021.

The Vermont-based writer and journalist had endured months of prolonged stress from her work environment. Eventually, she reached a point where it was hard to get out of bed. By the time she decided to take a six-week mental health leave from her media job, she was finding it difficult to sleep or even string a sentence together. READ MORE

32-year-old tech worker listed the salaries of all her jobs on LinkedIn—but doesn’t recommend others do it

Young workers are going all in with salary transparency, whether they’re sharing how much they’re paid with social media followers or co-workers and friends in real life. And Charlotte Chaze, 32, a Philadelphia-based tech worker took it another step further: She recently posted the salaries of all of her previous jobs to her LinkedIn profile. READ MORE

SEC commissioner calls on Congress to set national standards for athlete compensation

Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey made clear Monday that only Congress can truly set a national standard for name, image and likeness compensation in college athletics.

Sankey said NIL isn’t a partisan issue and that state legislatures haven’t yet enforced their NIL laws, some of which would bar the NCAA and conferences from adopting and enforcing their own standards. READ MORE

Tesla’s board will return $735 million in stock and cash to settle claims directors were grossly overpaid

Tesla Inc. directors, including Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, agreed to return more than $735 million in stock awards and cash to settle an investor lawsuit accusing board members of improperly giving themselves massive compensation packages.

The directors — including Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison; James Murdoch, son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch; and Musk’s brother, Kimbal Musk — agreed to hand over the stock grants and cash for already exercised options, along with making corporate-governance changes to the way board-level compensation issues are reviewed, according to court filings. READ MORE

Tech firms can use executive comp to ignite their growth

The best leadership drives the best performance. 

 In 2017, Lionel Messi signed the largest sports contract in history — a four-year agreement valued at $673,919,105 with FC Barcelona. It averaged out to $3.7M per game, but the size of the contract reflected something more. It reflected the leadership that the organization expected Messi to provide, from team chemistry all the way through to team marketing and revenue. This year, Messi signed a new contract, with a new team — now including team equity and a cut of the revenue from streaming and merchandise.  READ MORE

Leaked Google pay data reveals the highest salaries the tech giant pays in engineering, sales, and more

The median total compensation at Google in 2022 was $279,802 — but which roles raked in the highest salaries?

Insider obtained an internal company spreadsheet that was shared among Google employees. The sheet includes salary data for more than 12,000 US-based employees in 2022 and covers a range of roles, including software engineers and business analysts. READ MORE

Does It Pay to Link Executive Compensation to ESG Goals?

As ESG investing has boomed, so has a movement to tie executive compensation to environmental, social, and governance goals such as reducing carbon emissions, diversifying the workplace, and improving corporate culture. Like all things ESG-related, this has sparked skepticism and controversy. Are these incentives and bonuses driving CEOs to meet ambitious goals or are they just another way to pad compensation packages? READ MORE

Share Buybacks and Executive Compensation: Assessing Key Criticisms

Stock repurchases (or “buybacks”) — where a company uses excess cash flow to repurchase shares of its stock to reduce common shares outstanding — have attracted significant attention from journalists, academic researchers, and government regulators; the concept of repurchases has also accrued significant supporters and detractors. According to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler, “In 2021, buybacks amounted to nearly $950 billion and reportedly reached more than $1.25 trillion in 2022”. [1] In 2023, the SEC revised rules issued in 1982 governing buybacks to require quarterly reporting of daily officer and director stock transactions that occur during a period of a stock repurchase program in addition to narrative disclosure of the details of the company’s buyback program and trading policies applicable during the program. The new regulations are intended to increase transparency of buyback processes and executive stock transactions during such programs. This Viewpoint summarizes Pay Governance research on buybacks within the S&P 500, the impact of buybacks on incentive compensation, and recent regulations governing buybacks. READ MORE

Section 409A and the Deferred Compensation Trap for Startups and Early-Stage Growth Companies

Frequently during the financial crisis, the COVID pandemic, and now in a rising interest rate environment, we see startup and early-stage growth companies that, in the effort to conserve cash, reduce or eliminate the pay of the founders and senior executives for some period of time.  While this step is logical and critical to the company achieving long-term success, it is fraught with potential adverse consequences under Internal Revenue Code section 409A (“section 409A”).  

This article is intended to be a general overview of the issues that arise and the proactive and mitigating strategies that may be applied to avoid the harsh tax consequences to the employee when violations of section 409A occur. READ MORE