Are CEOs Paid Too Much?

Paul Moon

As a college student with an almost minimal wage job, I cannot wonder but think to

myself, why can’t everyone get paid a little more. The salary that I am getting is not sufficient

for even my school loans. Luckily, I was able to get the utility support of my parents, but people

who are living alone while trying to attend school, I cannot imagine the hardship with money

that they are going through on a daily basis. That is where the question, “Are CEOs paid too

much?” comes in. I believe that although CEOs deserve the money that they are receiving due to

their hard work and the efforts that they put into a company, they should put a higher percentage

of the profits into wages. They need to do this because CEOs do not need this much money in

order to sustain life, there are many workers who are living in a paycheck to paycheck basis, and

the proportion of CEO wage to worker wage should stay the same.

The wage that the CEOs make in comparison to their workers is too large and

unnecessary because they are taking away someone’s possible need for basis material while they

are using that money for their own free pleasure. There might be uses for the money, such as

investing it back into to company, that are helpful to the community and helps the public in

general; however, living in a luxurious mansion while distributing profits amongst the top CEOs

of a company should not exist. There should be a limit to the profits that they make, and the rest

should be put into the workers so that they have better wage, working conditions, and better

work benefits. In order to keep especially the public under control from being upset about them

making too much money, they should release to the public where all their profits are going to and

what is coming out of it. With this implemented, there will be CEOs that either realize or not
spend their money on personal pleasures but work towards making their workers have better

benefits so that their company seems more “stable.”

Also, CEOs are being paid too much and should be distributed to the company’s workers

because so many people are living in a paycheck to paycheck lifestyle. Many workers that are

working almost minimal wage jobs are students that need to pay off their student loans, like me,

while others are also paying for their mortgages. This leads to questions such as “How are people

going to save up for their 401k when there are lifetime loans and mortgages to pay?” especially

when they could get paid more but are not because the CEOs are taking all the leftover profits.

People can argue that it is the CEOs money and they do not have to do anything to help out other

people; however, they can at least give out scholarships for both student loans and mortgages so

that workers can start to at least save for their retirement at a younger age.

Finally, CEOs are getting paid too much not because of the sheer amount of money they

are getting but because as the company grows the CEOs make more money while the amount of

money the workers gain stays constant. When a company goes out of business not only the CEOs

are affected but so are the workers because now, they are jobless. Since workers are facing risk

of going out of work if their company fails, they should be able to get more pay when the

company increases in value. There were many tweets on how the reason that CEOs are getting

paid too much is because the workers help bring the value of the company higher by their

commitment to the job, but they are staying at a constant pay. Just like stockholders, the workers

should own a percentage of the company, nowhere near what a CEOs owns, so that the workers

also try even harder to create a better company.

Are CEOs paid too much? Yes, CEOs are getting too much money and should share to

the general workers of their company. It will reduce the anger coming from the general public
and create better a better working environment to the company’s workers. Just like the

government being governed by the people, CEOs should be government by their workers.

Syllogism Example:

All CEOs are paid too much

People who are paid too much are rich

All CEOs are rich