Dallas, Texas-Based AT&T's Top-Tier US Executives Average Pay Raise Was an Exceptionally Clean, Very Robust 13.8% Per Year During the Past Ten Years (2009-2018), Even Topping Verizon's 11.5% Per Year. Given How These Two Companies Have Underperformed in the Past Ten Years, There Appears To Have Been a Lot of Grade Inflation of Their Top-Tier Executives Performance.

The third Democratic 2020 Presidential candidate televised debate will be held in Houston, Texas on September 12 and 13, 2019.  Texas is also the home state of Julian Castro and Beto O'Rourke, who have both gained significant momentum in the past month.

The key issue to Texas citizens should be the huge and continuing Income Inequality Expansion which is at the core of many critical problems the US faces.

Thus I will be doing research and making posts on the average pay raise per year that the Top-Tier Executives of Texas Companies were rewarded with in the past ten years.  And I'll start with the large Texas Non-Oil & Gas Companies. 

The first Texas Non-Oil & Gas Company I am addressing here is AT&T Inc.  

From annual compensation information contained in Company Proxy Statement filings with the SEC, the chart at the bottom below shows AT&T's Top-Tier Executives Annual Total Compensation for each of two consecutive full years of employment for the past ten years (2009-2018). 

AT&T's Top-Tier Executives Average Pay Raise was an exceptionally clean, robust 13.8% per year for the past ten years.

The only highly effective US Government law enacted by either party in the past decade that has substantially reduced income inequality expansion is Obamacare and the political right is continually trying to repeal and replace it and three of the top four Democratic Presidential candidates now leading in the polls are effectively running as their principal issue to do in essence precisely the same thing ..... repeal and replace Obamacare ..... but to do it with either a pure or a version of Medicare For All.  

The pure Medicare For All advocated by both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and which was co-sponsored in a US Senate bill by Kamala Harris is off-the-charts enormously expensive and would take up an enormous amount of wasted time with no positive result since it has no chance of getting passed legislatively.  The US Government CBO hasn't been able to score the cost of a pure version of Medicare For All so far because the proposals have not been nearly specific enough.  If and when they are specific enough, the CBO scoring will make people shake in their boots and wonder just how any Presidential candidate could propose something so fiscally preposterous.  Just given their near-sighted stance on a pure version of Medicare For All, if the Democratic nominee is any of the three of them, it will be extremely difficult for any of them to beat Trump in the general election.  It is that simple.

On the other hand, if Elizabeth Warren got more rational and wisely altered her position some on Medicare For All, she would have a very good chance to beat Trump. 

My objective is to get a better handle on just why the US and particularly here Texas has such massive continuing Income Inequality Expansion ..... it appears to be predominantly about the relative long-term annual pay raise percentages for the executives of a Company vs the many non-executive employees of a Company, coupled with the stock price appreciation subsequent to the time the company executives were rewarded in their pay with stock equity compensation.

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, simple but effective Fair Pay Raise Income Inequality Narrowing Company tax incentives for rewarding non-executive employees with fair pay increases ..... the carrot ..... and Company tax disincentives for rewarding executive employees with clearly excessively high pay increases ..... the stick.  I am certain ..... it is simple math ..... that this tax proposal would be very effective in substantially reducing the huge income inequality expansion that has occurred for decades in annual percentage pay raises between company executives and the rest of the company employees. 

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 non-employee contract workers and all middle and lower income people of all ages, including those retired.

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

	FYE	FYE			FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE
	Dec	Dec			Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec
AT&T	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
Stephenson CEO	29,118	28,721			28,721	28,434		28,434	25,146		25,146	23,984		23,984	23,247
Stephens CFO	15,642	13,893			13,893	11,582		11,582	9,599		9,599	10,711		10,711	7,873
Donovan CEO AT&T Communications	14,586	15,194			15,194	9,508		9,508	9,738		N/A	N/A
McAtee General Counsel	12,849	6,225
Stankey CEO Warner Media	16,553	10,095			10,095	12,765		12,765	10,041		10,041	10,190		10,190	7,663
de la Vega Vice Chairman								12,030	10,087		10,087	10,074		10,074	8,804
Watts General Counsel														10,076	6,536
Totals	88,748	74,128			67,903	62,289		74,319	64,611		54,873	54,959		65,035	54,123
Annual % Change vs Prior Year	19.7%				9.0%			15.0%			-0.2%			20.2%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change		12.8%
	FYE	FYE			FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE
	Dec	Dec			Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec
AT&T	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
Stephenson CEO	23,247	22,235			22,235	22,018		22,018	27,342		27,342	29,231		29,231	15,785
Stephens CFO	7,873	9,069			9,069	4,606		N/A	N/A
Donovan CEO AT&T Communications
McAtee General Counsel
Stankey CEO Warner Media	7,663	12,982			12,982	11,460		11,460	9,500		9,500	13,033		13,033	5,458
de la Vega Vice Chairman	8,804	11,926			11,926	9,899		9,899	10,895		10,895	13,581		13,581	6,344
Watts General Counsel	6,536	7,680			7,680	8,505		8,505	9,245		N/A	N/A
Linder CFO								N/A	N/A		8,700	10,941		10,941	5,693
Totals	54,123	63,892			63,892	56,488		51,882	56,982		56,437	66,786		66,786	33,280
Annual % Change vs Prior Year	-15.3%				13.1%			-9.0%			-15.5%			100.7%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change		14.8%
10 Year Average Per Year % Change		13.8%