Amazon.com Inc's Top-Tier Executives Average Pay Raise Was a Completely Off-the-Charts 659% Per Year During the Past Ten Years (2009-2018)

From Company Proxy Statement filings with the SEC, below are Amazon.com Inc's Top-Tier Executives Annual Total Compensation for each of two consecutive full years of employment for the most recent ten years.

The exceptionally successful, well-run Amazon's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay Raise of a completely off-the-charts 659.0% per year over the past 10 years is even more than double that of the highest of the 30 Dow Industrial Companies Apple's off-the-charts 306.1% per year and more than 20 times that of the second highest of these Dow Industrial Companies Microsoft's blistering 32.4% per year.

To fix Income Inequality driven mainly by Company and its Board of Director choices on Percentage Annual Pay Raises, the US Government should step in and pass wisely-designed Fair Pay Raise Income Inequality Narrowing Organization tax incentives ..... the carrot ..... and Organization wise tax disincentives ..... the stick. 

Let me explain how a very effective Fair Pay Raise Income Inequality Narrowing Organization Tax Incentives and Tax Disincentives proposal might work.  The tax percentages and five quintiles used are just my first thoughts and could easily be changed to make sure all parties are impacted fairly.

For decades, the overwhelming majority of US Organizations have implemented continuing employee compensation policies that have effectively resulted in continuing and massive income inequality expansion harming lower and mid-level US employees, especially women, blacks, Latinos, other non-white people, LGBTQ workers, hospital and other health care workers, Non-employee contract workers, present and past union members, low and middle income retirees, and yes also many low and middle income white men, including those working in the Midwest Industrial Rust Belt.

And also for decades, neither political party of the US Government has done anything of substance to effectively address this discrimination in continuing pay.

One of the best ways to curtail massive and continuing income inequality expansion, which is wreaking economic havoc on many US employees, is through what I call The Organization Fair Wage Tax Adjustment. It is US Capitalism Done Right, Where All Organization Employees Benefit, Not Just the Ones at the Top Rung of the Ladder. Here's how it might work.

Every for-profit US Organization (Corporation, Partnership, REIT, etc) and US non-profit Organization above a certain size would be required annually to break out its annual total US employee compensation just of its employees working in both the current full year and also in the previous full year. The gold-standard Employee Compensation measure is defined by the US SEC and publicly-held companies must use it in their annual proxy statements filed with SEC.

These two-year continuing full-year employee total compensation amounts are then broken down into five equal US dollars total employee compensation quintile groups.

These five quintile groups would be equal in total US dollars but logically the top two quintile groups combined should have less than 10% of the total number of US Organization employees and the lower three quintile groups combined should have more than 90% of the total number of US Organization employees.

The Organization would then be assessed a US federal tax at 60% of the total actual annual increase in total employee compensation as defined above of the top quintile group and at 10% of the total actual annual increase in total annual employee compensation of the second-to-the-top quintile group.

At the same time, the Organization would be rewarded with a US federal tax credit at 40% of the total actual annual increase in total employee compensation of the bottom quintile group, at 20% of the total actual annual increase in total employee compensation of the second-to-the bottom quintile group, and at 10% of the total actual annual increase in total employee compensation of the middle quintile group.

End result, the Organization giving percentage of total employee compensation raises fairly to all US employees won't pay a dime of additional tax and US Income Inequality would not expand.

And if the Organization elected to give higher percentage raises in total actual employee compensation to its lower-paid employees than to its higher-paid employees, it would be rewarded with a net US federal tax credit in the aggregate, which has the potential of being quite lucrative, and US income inequality would finally narrow.

To summarize the end result, the higher the income inequality expansion in one year, the higher the net tax owed by the Organization to the US Government. And the higher the income inequality narrowing in one year, the higher the net tax credit rewarded to the Organization.

Adequate controls and stiff penalties would be needed in this legislation to ensure that creative Organization CFOs, outside auditors and outside management consultants are not able to game the system here.

This critically needed Fair Pay proposal is what I call incredibly fair to all parties impacted and so will a huge majority of all US citizens.

Further, US consumer spending and US GDP growth will both get a significant boost from the resultant higher pay raises in the hands of Organization employees in the three lower total employee compensation quintile groups.

Nancy Pelosi should consider calling for a US House vote on legislation for this. Republican House members voting against it will have a very difficult time justifying their vote to their District citizens. It would probably result in a huge increase in the number of Democrats in the US House in 2020.

And when the US House sends this legislation to the US Senate, if the US Senate refuses to call for a vote on such a popular piece of legislation on this critical fair pay raise issue, there will also probably be a very significant increase in the number of Democrats in the US Senate in 2020.

In addition, progressive US States should consider introducing legislation on their own Fair Pay State Tax Adjustment somewhat similar to the above Fair Pay Federal Tax proposal, but the tax percentages should probably be a bit lower than the above tax percentages.

And the continuing annual net tax revenues raised by the US Government here should be set up in a separate fund to be used only for wise additional income inequality narrowing initiatives.  This fund should be run by an outside group made up entirely of minorities harmed the most by Income Inequality Expansion of the past decades  .....all women, all blacks, all Latinos, all other non-white people, all past and present union members, all LGBTQ, all US State and Local Government employees, all non-employee contract workers and all middle and lower income people of all ages.

Also, the US Government should require all US Corporate Boards to include at least one worker representative and to exclude any Company Executive. 

I just recently have researched and made posts on Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay Raise per year for each of the 30 Dow Industrial Companies.  Amazon here is the first of many large non-Dow Companies I will be making similar posts on in order to get an even better handle on just why the US has such massive continuing Income Inequality Expansion ..... it appears to be predominantly about the relative long-term annual pay raise percentages.

	FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE
	Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec
Amazon.com	2018	2017		2017	2016		2016	2015		2015	2014		2014	2013
Top-Tier	Total	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total
Executive	Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp
	$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s
Jeffrey Bezos CEO	1,682	1,682		1,682	1,682		1,682	1,682		1,682	1,682		1,682	1,682
Brian Olsavsky SVP CFO	6,933	163		163	4,559		4,559	7,787		N/A	N/A
Jeffrey Blackburn SVP Business Development	10,400	179		179	22,194		N/A	N/A
Andrew Jassy CEO Amazon Web Services	19,733	194		194	35,610		35,610	175		175	7,665		7,665	163
Jeffrey Wilke CEO Worldwide Consumer	19,722	185		185	32,958		32,958	176		176	8,516		8,516	168
Diego Piacentini SVP Intl Consumer Business							N/A	N/A		231	6,866		6,866	231
Thomas Szkutak Former SVP CFO										N/A	N/A		5,962	163
Totals	58,470	2,403		2,403	97,003		74,809	9,820		2,264	24,729		30,691	2,407
Annual % Change From Prior Year	2333.2%			-97.5%			661.8%			-90.8%			1175.1%
	FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE
	Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec
Amazon.com	2013	2012		2012	2011		2011	2010		2010	2009		2009	2008
Top-Tier	Total	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total		Total	Total
Executive	Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp		Comp	Comp
	$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s		$ 000s	$ 000s
Jeffrey Bezos CEO	1,682	1,682		1,682	1,682		1,682	1,682		1,682	1,782		1,782	1,282
Andrew Jassy CEO Amazon Web Services	163	11,612		11,612	163		163	6,629		N/A	N/A
Jeffrey Wilke CEO Worldwide Consumer	168	17,728		17,728	168		168	7,191		7,191	163		N/A	N/A
Diego Piacentini SVP Intl Consumer Business	231	11,819		11,819	231		231	6,696		6,696	231		231	7,722
Thomas Szkutak Former SVP CFO	163	8,451		8,451	163		163	6,629		6,629	163		163	7,652
Sebastian Gunningham SVP Seller Services													440	940
Totals	2,407	51,292		51,292	2,407		2,407	28,827		22,198	2,339		2,616	17,596
Annual % Change From Prior Year	-95.3%			2031.0%			-91.7%			849.0%			-85.1%
10 Year Average Per Year % Change		659.0%