CEO pay and stock buybacks have soared at the largest low-wage corporations

> 100 S&P 500 corporations with the lowest median worker pay

So not necessarily “low-wage” corporations, just the lowest quintile from a very small group.

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It’s interesting to me this doesn’t self correct. I’d love to know if someone can explain why.

E.g. presumably companies can pay people more if they capture less value themselves. Why can’t a company do that and just hire the best talent?

It’s entirely possible that this is causal ABs deliberate, ie the reason why boards of these companies have approved large CEO pay packages is so that the CEO will align themselves with the shareholders paying them rather than the workers working for them and cut wages so the money can be returned to shareholders as buybacks.

Stock buybacks used to be illegal. It's a loophole way of paying employees at a lower tax rate than salary.

HBR discusses some downsides of buybacks: https://hbr.org/2020/01/why-stock-buybacks-are-dangerous-for...