CEOs spending more on stock buybacks than capital investments and employee retirement plan contributions

The CEOs of some of the largest employers with the lowest-paid workers in the US are more “focused on their own personal short-term windfall” – spending significantly more money on stock buybacks than capital investments and contributions to employee retirement plans, according to a new report released by the Institute for Policy Studies.

Between 2019 to 2023, the 100 largest low-wage employers in the US, the 100 corporations in the S&P 500 with the lowest median worker pay, spent $522bn on stock buybacks. Lowe’s and Home Depot spent the most on stock buybacks, with Lowe’s spending $42.6bn during this period and Home Depot spending $37.2bn.

The report cites that Lowe’s could have used those funds to give every one of its 285,000 employees an annual $29,865 bonus for five years, and Home Depot could have used those funds to give five annual $16,071 bonuses to each of the retailer’s 463,100 employees.

  • Miles O'Brien@startrek.websiteEnglish
    41·
    3 months ago

    Because when you already make 10,000x more than the lowest paid workers, you really need that extra income.

    I mean honestly, 175 MILLION is not enough, if I don’t have at least 15 BILLION am I even a real CEO

    And any talk of raising wages is unconstitutional, and communist.

    • Professorozone@lemmy.world
      3·
      3 months ago

      Come on now. Do you really want to work for a corporation where the CEO makes less than his competitors? I mean how embarrassing.

    • Astronauticaldb@lemmy.world
      2·
      3 months ago

      It’s even worse considering that if a CEO even thinks of raising wages, talking to the union, etc, they’ll be fired by the board of directors if their company has one. (Context: the CEO of Starbucks just so happened to be fired for unknown reasons after actually talking to their union.)