Charleston, South Carolina-Based Benefits Cloud-Based Software Company Benefitfocus Inc's Top-Tier Executives Average Pay Raise Was a Blistering 28.9% Per Year During the Past Six Years (2013-2018) Since Its 2013 IPO

After the second Democratic 2020 Presidential candidate debate held in Detroit where Cory Booker was the standout performer, where several other non-top-tier candidates performed exceptionally well especially Steve Bullock and where most of the top-tier candidates stumbled, I now will turn my attention to the early primary States and I already have finished both Iowa and New Hampshire Companies so now I have moved on to South Carolina Companies.

The key issue to South Carolina 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 South Carolina Companies were rewarded with in the past ten years.

The 11th and last South Carolina Company I am addressing here is Benefitfocus Inc.  Next up Nevada Companies.

From annual compensation information contained in Company Proxy Statement filings with the SEC, the chart at the bottom below shows Benefitfocus Inc's Top-Tier Executives Annual Total Compensation for each of two consecutive substantially full years of employment for the past six years since its 2013 IPO. 

Benefitfocus Inc's Top-Tier Executives Average Pay Raise was a blistering 28.9% per year for the last six years, which was the third highest of the 11 largest South Carolina Companies I have addressed so far.

1. World Acceptance Corp +306.6% per year for the past five years
2. 3D Systems +31.7% per year for the past ten years
3. Benefitfocus Inc +28.9% per year for the past six years
4. Blackbaud +27.0% per year for the past five years
5. South State Corp +17.6% per year for the past ten years
6. AVX Corp +17.3% per year for the past ten years
7. Sonono Products Co +14.4% per year for the past ten years
8. Ingevity Corp +13.8% per year for the past five years
9. Domtar Corp +11.2% per year for the past ten years
10. Denny's Corp +11.0% per year for the past ten years
11. SCANA +7.4% per year for nine 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.  Just given their near-sighted stance on 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. 

My objective is to get a better handle on just why the US and particularly here South Carolina 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
Benefitfocus	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
Raymond August CEO	4,173	2,677			2,677	2,074		2,074	3,675		N/A	N/A
Jonathan Dussault CFO	N/A	N/A
Shawn Jenkins CEO					1,749	3,879		3,879	2,999		2,999	2,798		2,798	924
Milton Alpern CFO											1,229	1,117		1,117	409
Andrew Howell Chief Commercial Officer														2,016	990
Totals	4,173	2,677			4,426	5,953		5,953	6,674		4,228	3,915		5,931	2,323
Annual % Change vs Prior Year	55.9%				-25.7%			-10.8%			8.0%			155.3%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change		36.5%
	FYE	FYE
	Dec	Dec
Benefitfocus	2013	2012
Top-Tier	Total	Total
Executive	Comp	Comp
	$ 000s	$ 000s
Shawn Jenkins CEO	924	881
Milton Alpern CFO	409	1,082
Andrew Howell Chief Commercial Officer	990	598
Totals	2,323	2,561
Annual % Change vs Prior Year	-9.3%
6 Year Average Per Year % Change		28.9%