Fort Worth, Texas-Based American Airlines Group's Top-Tier Executives Average Pay Raise Was an Off-the-Charts 85.9% Per Year For the Nine Years That Top-Tier Executive Compensation Was Disclosed in the Past Ten Years (2009-2018), Driven Predominately By the Golden Parachutes Received By Top-Tier Executives From the December 2013 Merger With US Airways

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 9th Texas Non-Oil & Gas Company I am addressing here is American Airlines Group Inc.  

From annual compensation information contained in Company Proxy Statement, Prospectus 424B3 and 10K/A filings with the SEC, the chart at the bottom below shows American Airlines Group's Top-Tier Executives Annual Total Compensation for each of two consecutive substantially full years of employment for the past ten years (2009-2018).   One of these two-year periods (2014 and 2013) didn't have any comparable employees. 

American Air Group's Top-Tier Executives Average Pay Raise was an Off-the-Charts 85.9% per year for nine of the past ten years, which is by far the very highest of the 9 very large Texas Non-Oil & Gas Companies I have addressed so far.

1. American Airlines Group +85.9% per year for nine of the past 10 years
2. Sysco +18.7% per year for the past ten years
3. Waste Connections +18.1% per year for the past ten years
4. Southwest Airlines +18.0% per year for the past ten years
5. AT&T +13.8% per year for the past ten years
6. Waste Management +13.2% per year for the past ten years
7. Texas Instruments +7.2% per year for the past ten years
8. Crown Castle International +6.3% per year for the past ten years
9. Kimberly-Clark +5.8% 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.

And the US Federal Government should ban Golden Parachutes.

	FYE	FYE			FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE
	Dec	Dec			Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec
American Airlines Group	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
Doug Parker CEO	12,000	12,175			12,175	11,141		11,141	11,419		11,419	12,302		N/A	N/A
Robert Isom President	6,687	7,094			7,094	6,552		6,552	6,169		6,169	6,272		N/A	N/A
Derek Kerr CFO	3,850	4,108			4,108	4,191		4,191	5,221		5,221	5,630		N/A	N/A
Steve Johnson EVP Corporate Affairs	3,898	4,146			4,146	4,220		4,220	5,091		5,091	5,684		N/A	N/A
Maya Leibman Chief Information Officer	3,861	4,159			4,159	4,252		N/A	N/A
Scott Kirby Former President								N/A	N/A		8,302	8,780		N/A	N/A
Totals	30,296	31,682			31,682	30,356		26,104	27,900		36,202	38,668		-	-
Annual % Change vs Prior Year	-4.4%				4.4%			-6.4%			-6.4%			N/A
4 Year Average Per Year % Change		-3.2%
	FYE	FYE			FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE
	Dec 9	Dec 31			Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec
American Airlines Group	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
Thomas Horton CEO	19,343	1,749			1,749	4,183		4,183	3,696		3,696	3,037		3,037	2,852
Isabella Goren CFO	9,493	1,350			1,350	2,160		2,160	2,012		N/A	N/A
Daniel Garton EVP	10,062	1,678			1,678	3,402		3,402	2,908		2,908	2,854		2,854	2,425
James Ream SVP Operations	10,099	642			N/A	N/A
Gary Kennedy General Counsel					1,378	2,293		2,293	2,180		2,180	1,902		1,902	1,591
Gerard Arpey CEO											5,953	5,631		5,631	5,289
Robert Reding EVP Operations											2,754	2,589		2,589	2,448
Totals	48,997	5,419			6,155	12,038		12,038	10,796		17,491	16,013		16,013	14,605
Annual % Change vs Prior Year	804.2%				-48.9%			11.5%			9.2%			9.6%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change		157.1%
9 Year Average Per Year % Change		85.9%