According to the latest statistics, CEO pay last year rose by 27 percent, while worker pay rose by just 2 percent. The median corporate CEO made $9 million last year, pushing CEO pay nearly back to its pre-recession level. But even CEO pay pales in comparison to that of hedge fund managers:
Last year was very lucrative for some of the biggest and best-performing hedge funds’ chiefs. Wealth was so concentrated that a mere 25 people pocketed a total of $22.07 billion, according to this year’s annual ranking by AR Magazine, which tracks the hedge fund industry. At $50,000 a year, it would take the salaries of 441,400 Americans to match that sum.
Making matters worse, hedge fund managers benefit from preferential tax treatment that middle-income Americans don’t. Due to what’s known as the carried-interest loophole, the income that hedge fund managers receive if their funds make money is treated as capital gains — rather than ordinary income — and gets taxed at the capital gains rate of 15 percent. Even though the pay is performance-based compensation (just like any other performance-based bonus made by any other worker), hedge fund managers receive a tax break on that income.
This results in hedge fund managers paying less in taxes on this income than middle-class workers, who are subject to a 25 percent top marginal tax rate:
Congress has debated closing this particular loophole over and over, but has never actually followed through. At a time when vital and popular programs are being placed on the altar of deficit reduction, removing this tax break for some of the richest people in the country seems prudent.
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