TOW #19-"paid-what-you're-worth"

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/paid-what-youre-worth_b_4964290.html

      The subject of workers and their wages has been a source of controversy for hundreds of years, pitching employers against employees, and highlighted by the never-ending demand of laborers for higher wages. This article by Robert Reich discusses the myth that people's salaries reflect their worth as workers. In it, Reich uses statistical data and successive counterarguments to refute and discredit  this idea.
      Throughout this article can be found statistics on different companies and the wages they pay or paid in the past, data which Reich uses to facilitate his argument. He begins by pointing out that today, American CEO's are paid almost 300 times the salary of the average worker. According to the "paid-what-you're-worth" principle, this can only mean that, "They must be worth it or they wouldn't be paid this much." Reich announces his stance, i.e. against this belief, when immediately after wards he catergorizes it as "dangerous myth." He then goes on to analyze Wall Street, citing that Wall Street paid it's workers around $26.7 billion in just bonuses in 2013. His question regarding this large figure: "Are Wall Street bankers really worth it?"
      Reich mentions that 50 years ago, GM employees were paid an average of $35 an hour in today's money. Today, Walmart is the largest employer of workers, and their employees only get paid about $8.80 per hour. This begs the question whether, "... the typical GM employee a half-century ago was worth four times what today's typical Walmart employee is worth? " Reich's answer is no. The counter he gives to this assumption is that 50 years ago, GM employees had a strong union to bargain with their employers on their behalf. Today, Walmart employees dont have a strong union to gain them better wages. Later in his article, to explain that Wall Street bankers arent actually worth their billions of dollars of bonuses, he says that, "You don't have to be a rocket scientist or even a Wall Street banker to see that the hidden subsidy the Wall Street banks enjoy because they're too big to fail is about three times what Wall Street paid out in bonuses." Thus it is not merely the efforts of workers/bankers themselves that results in their high wages, it is the subsidies that the Wall Street banks they work at have.
      I believe Reich did a good job of pointing out the flaw in the belief that workers are paid only what they're worth. He effectively renders it a true myth by discrediting it. His article is even mor effective due to the fact that it is published on Huffington Post, a well-established, well-known, widely-surveyed website known.