Austin, Texas-Based Software Cloud Company Upland Software Inc's Top-Tier Executives Average Pay Raise Was an Off-the-Charts 82.3% Per Year During the Past Five Years (2014-2018) Since Its 2014 IPO

The third Democratic 2020 Presidential candidate televised debate will be held in Houston, Texas on September 12, 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 52nd Texas Non-Oil & Gas Company I am addressing here is Upland Software Inc.

From annual compensation information contained in Company Proxy Statement filings with the US SEC, the chart at the bottom below shows Upland Software's Top-Tier Executives Annual Total Compensation for each of two consecutive full years of employment for the past five years subsequent to its 2014 IPO.
  
Upland Software's Top-Tier Executives Average Pay Raise was an off-the-charts 82.3% per year for the past five years, which is the 9th highest of the 52 large Texas Non-Oil & Gas Companies I have addressed so far.

1. SailPoint Technologies +278.1% per year for the past two years
2. Copart +183.2% per year for the past ten years
3. Q2 Holdings +180.3% per year for the past five years
4. SolarWinds +114.4% per year for seven of the past ten years
5. Nexstar Media Group +102.9% per year for the past ten years
6. Reata Pharmaceuticals +99.5% per year for the past four years
7. American Airlines Group +85.9% per year for nine of the past ten years
8. Helen of Troy +84.4% per year for the past ten years
9. Upland Software +82.3% per year for the past five years
10. Invitation Homes +78.6% per year for the past two years
11. Tyler Technologies +61.2% per year for the past ten years
12. Wingstop +54.2% per year for the past four years
13. Builders FirstSource +50.9% per year for the past ten years
14. Vistra Energy +50.6% in the past year 
15. Rackspace Holdings +50.2% per year for seven of the past ten years
16. LyondellBasell +45.9% per year for the past eight years
17. Six Flags Entertainment +37.5% per year for the past seven years
18. RealPage +29.2% per year for the past nine years
19. Quanta Services +28.1% per year for the past ten years
20. Celanese +27.8% per year for the last ten years
21. National Instruments +25.5% per year for the last ten years
22. Yum China Holdings +23.8% per year for the past 5 years
23. Eagle Materials +20.5% per year for the past ten years
24. D R Horton +20.1% per year for the past ten years
25. Dell Technologies +18.8% per year for seven of the past ten years
26. Sysco +18.7% per year for the past ten years
27. Waste Connections +18.1% per year for the past ten years
28. Cirrus Logic +18.0% per year for the past ten years
29. Southwest Airlines +18.0% per year for the past ten years
30. Sabre Corp +17.7% per year for the past five years
31. Huntsman Corp +17.3% per year for the past ten years
32. Cinemark Holdings +16.4% per year for the past ten years
33. Westlake Chemical +16.1% per year for the past ten years
34. Global Life +15.5% per year for the past ten years
35. El Paso Electric Co +15.5% per year for the past ten years
36. American Campus Communities REIT +15.4% per year for the past ten years
37. Atmos Energy +14.4% per year for the past ten years
38. AT&T +13.8% per year for the past ten years
39. Waste Management +13.2% per year for the past ten years
40. Match Group +12.2% per year for the past six years
41. Calpine +11.2% per year for the past ten years
42. Service Corp International +10.8% per year for the past ten years
43. Camden Property Trust +10.4% per year for the past ten years
44. Tenet Healthcare +10.3% per year for the past ten years
45. Jacobs Engineering Group +8.7% per year for the past ten years
46. Texas Instruments +7.2% per year for the past ten years
47. Cullen/Frost Bankers +6.9% per year for the past ten years
48. Crown Castle International +6.3% per year for the past ten years
49. Kimberly-Clark +5.8% per year for the past ten years
50. CenterPoint Energy +5.8% per year for the past ten years
51. Lennox international +5.4% per year for the past ten years
52. Silicon Laboratories +4.4% per year for the past ten years

There have been many US Government laws enacted in the past two decades that have substantially increased income inequality expansion but the only highly effective US Government law enacted by either party in the past two decades 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 of beating 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
Upland Software	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
McDonald CEO	5,837	3,001			3,001	821		821	240		240	1,792		1,814	356
Mattox President COO	3,721	2,706			2,706	1,451		1,451	1,311		N/A	N/A
Hill CFO	2,650	1,724			1,724	699		699	514		514	285
Henley EVP														668	427
Totals	12,208	7,431			7,431	2,971		2,971	2,065		754	2,077		2,482	783
Annual % Change vs Prior Year	64.3%				150.1%			43.9%			-63.7%			217.0%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change		82.3%