Income inequality at 3 largest US car makers is real and lopsided
rankings
Ford
income inequalityeconomic impact
1/3
General Motors
income inequalityeconomic impact
2/3
Tesla
income inequalityeconomic impact
3/3
In a decade that has seen dramatic ups and downs for the US auto industry, involving massive government support programs for all three of the remaining US headquarter manufacturers, its perplexing, in the least, to witness the industry lead the charge on extreme wealth concentration and inequality. Between 2008 and 2010, US taxpayers spent tens of billions propping up and supporting Ford, General Motors and Chrysler (now a division of Stellantis in the Netherlands). And while Tesla did not directly benefit from industry bailout funds, the company did receive its own half billion dollar US Department of Energy guaranteed loan on top of a couple decades worth of government tax incentives for the purchase of its primary products. In short, a significant amount of corporate welfare has gone into creating one of history’s most income unbalanced industries.
report summary
about this industry
Income Inequality Methodology
In the United States, publicly-traded corporations are required to report compensation figures to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). At a minimum, these SEC filings include the 5 largest compensation packages in a given year. This data is typically reported at a corporation’s fiscal year end. There is no requirement to publish corporate minimum wages or equivalent compensation packages. Spendwell will make a good faith effort to identify and publicly confirm corporate minimum wages and when identified, will apply them to this income equality comparison, provided those corporate minimums have or had gone into effect for the years included in this ranking. Published corporate minimums that do not include the value of compensation beyond an hourly figure will be calculated based on the hourly figure alone. In lieu of a published corporate minimum compensation package, Spendwell uses a compensation package equivalent to US federal minimum wage earnings over a yearly period.
Corporations with a smaller gap between their most-compensated employee and their least-compensated employee rank higher than companies with larger gaps. In order to account for fluctuations in compensation and employee turnover, Spendwell reports on the last 6 available years of compensation reporting. In most instances, this includes the six years through the end of fiscal year 2020 - which for most companies was reported sometime during 2021. Currently, Spendwell is reporting only data pertaining to the 20 largest compensation packages reported over these 6 years, comparing this data to published corporate minimum compensation for employees and contractors, where available. As noted, a compensation package based on the US federal minimum wage will be used in absence of a published corporate minimum wage or compensation package. If a corporation's published corporate minimum wage does not specifically include all contractors working for a corporation in any capacity, a compensation package based on the US federal minimum wage for comparison to most well paid executive.
In some reporting instances, Spendwell’s rankings will include private corporations with no current compensation figures publicly available. These corporations might be included in a report, but will be listed as not ranked unless they have voluntarily published necessary information and Spendwell has been made aware of its publication. All ranked corporations are ranked based on the previously mentioned data reported to the SEC through end-of-year or annual reports, which can be accessed through the SEC’s Edgar search tool here:
Search for a company by name to view its filed DEF 14A reports.
Income Inequality Methodology
In the United States, publicly-traded corporations are required to report compensation figures to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). At a minimum, these SEC filings include the 5 largest compensation packages in a given year. This data is typically reported at a corporation’s fiscal year end. There is no requirement to publish corporate minimum wages or equivalent compensation packages. Spendwell will make a good faith effort to identify and publicly confirm corporate minimum wages and when identified, will apply them to this income equality comparison, provided those corporate minimums have or had gone into effect for the years included in this ranking. Published corporate minimums that do not include the value of compensation beyond an hourly figure will be calculated based on the hourly figure alone. In lieu of a published corporate minimum compensation package, Spendwell uses a compensation package equivalent to US federal minimum wage earnings over a yearly period.
Corporations with a smaller gap between their most-compensated employee and their least-compensated employee rank higher than companies with larger gaps. In order to account for fluctuations in compensation and employee turnover, Spendwell reports on the last 6 available years of compensation reporting. In most instances, this includes the six years through the end of fiscal year 2020 - which for most companies was reported sometime during 2021. Currently, Spendwell is reporting only data pertaining to the 20 largest compensation packages reported over these 6 years, comparing this data to published corporate minimum compensation for employees and contractors, where available. As noted, a compensation package based on the US federal minimum wage will be used in absence of a published corporate minimum wage or compensation package. If a corporation's published corporate minimum wage does not specifically include all contractors working for a corporation in any capacity, a compensation package based on the US federal minimum wage for comparison to most well paid executive.
In some reporting instances, Spendwell’s rankings will include private corporations with no current compensation figures publicly available. These corporations might be included in a report, but will be listed as not ranked unless they have voluntarily published necessary information and Spendwell has been made aware of its publication. All ranked corporations are ranked based on the previously mentioned data reported to the SEC through end-of-year or annual reports, which can be accessed through the SEC’s Edgar search tool here:
Search for a company by name to view its filed DEF 14A reports.
