Richfield, Minnesota Retailer Best Buy's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay and Employee Benefits Increase Was a Blistering 15.0% Per Year During the Past Ten Years

I think that Pete Buttigieg was the clear winner in the recent 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary Debate held recently in Los Angeles.  Mayor Pete very successfully warded off a vicious barrage of strange attacks from several parties.  I think Amy Klobuchar was the clear loser in this debate, attacking Pete irrationally as if she were acting in desperation.  Her nastiness here is consistent with the rumor that she does not treat her own staff well.

I have researched and made posts related to Top-Tier Executive Total Compensation in most of the largest companies headquartered in the four earliest 2020 Democratic Primary States ..... Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

Then, of the 14 Super Tuesday US States holding their 2020 Democratic Presidential Primaries on March 3, 2020, I made like posts related to most of the largest Texas Companies, most of the largest Southern California companies, most of the largest technology companies headquartered in Northern California and most of the largest North Carolina Companies.

My research has shown that Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Tom Steyer are all spot on when they assert that US Corporate Financial Corruption is rampant.  But the problem is that none of the three have any clue on precisely the cause or how to effectively fix this huge problem which is also the primary cause of the huge, continuing US income inequality expansion which has been occurring for decades.

But even worse, even though he is a very nice man, Joe Biden is so naive that he isn't even aware of the extent of this continuing huge US income inequality expansion or precisely its cause which has been occurring under his nose for the past forty plus years, nor is he aware of, or else has decided to ignore, just how huge the largest US tax shelters are which are located right under his nose in his home State of Delaware, mostly in one Wilmington building.

On the very negative side, voting for many years for the Annual Income Tax Loophole Extenders which dramatically increased US income inequality expansion each year were Amy Klobuchar and Joe Biden.  On the very positive side, voting for many years against these same Annual Income Tax Loophole Extenders were Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

So far in my research of large US Corps I have shown that their Top-Tier Executives have been rewarded continually with just enormous annual percentage increases in pay and employee benefits, mostly stock equity compensation, to the extent that the key issue to US citizens should be the huge and continuing Income Inequality Expansion which is at the core of many critical problems the US faces.

While increasing the US federal minimum wage will help here, this would be just a  mere drop in the bucket as compared to the fact that the annual percentage increase in the pay and employee benefits of Company non-executive employees are minuscule in relation to that of Company executive employees and this has been going on for decades.  When Corporate CEOs and CFOs primarily view non-executive employees as Costs rather than as People, this is what happens.  And neither political party has had the courage to take on US Corps here.

But this huge pay inequality problem also exists widely in the non-profit sector including in non-profit hospitals.  And it also exists widely in state and local governments, especially in public education.

So now I will be addressing Top-Tier Executive Compensation for five to ten years in some of the largest companies in the State of Minnesota, one of the 14 Super Tuesday 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary US States.  

I will be doing this research mostly by stock market capitalization and thus the 11th Minnesota Company that I am addressing here is Retailer Best Buy.

From annual compensation information contained in Proxy Statement filings with the US SEC, the chart at the bottom below shows Best Buy's Top-Tier Executives Annual Total Compensation for each of the two consecutive full years of employment for the past ten years.  

Best Buy's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay and Employee Benefits Increase was a blistering 15.0% per year during the past ten years, which is the 7th highest of the 11 very large Minnesota Companies I have addressed so far.

1. Medtronic plc +39.4% per year for the past five years
2. XCEL Energy +22.2% per year for the past ten years
3. Target +19.3% per year for the past five years
4. 3M Co +18.3% per year for the past ten years
5. US Bancorp +16.3% per year for the past five years
6. Hormel Foods Corp +15.5% per year for the past five years
7. Best Buy +15.0% per year for the past ten years
8. General Mills +10.1% per year for the past five years
9. UnitedHealth Group +9.6% per year for the past five years
10. Travelers Companies +5.8% per year for the past five years
11. Ecolab +5.6% per year for the past five years

So who is causing these extremely high Top-Tier Executives pay percentages increases, which tend to be much higher than the Companies' actual financial performance?

And who is causing the annual minuscule raises for the company non-executive employees? 

Generally it works like this.

The Company's Board of Directors set the pay standards for the total compensation of the CEO for each year.   

  

Then the CEO establishes the pay standards for the Top-Tier Executives, which is reviewed by the Company's Board of Directors.  

And the CEO also usually approves the overall pay and employee benefits annual percentage increases for each of the other levels of the Company's employees.

So who is this huge, continuing Company pay and employee benefit income inequality "on"?

Clearly it's "on" the Company's CEO and the Company's Board of Directors.

It's simple math.  The lower the annual percentage raise for the Company's non-executive employees, the higher the Company's annual profits and thus also the higher the annual percentage raise for the Company's executives since their annual pay raise is tied to Company profits.

The end result is massive, continuing income inequality expansion.


And the only way it will be fixed is by wisely-designed US Government tax legislation, which gives companies very nice tax incentives for paying non-executive employees very well in a given year and which also requires companies to pay a luxury tax when executives are paid clearly too much in a given year or when non-executive employees are clearly paid too little in a given year.

Why hasn't it been fixed? 

Because more than half of the US Congress, including more than a few Democrats, are effectively controlled by the US Corps or because the US President is controlled by the US Corps who are vigorously fighting to be at the top of the list of US Corps continuing to expand income inequality.

So how do you solve that problem?

Vote for US Senators, US House members and a US President who isn't controlled by the US Corps which view their non-executive employees and contract workers as Costs rather than as People ..... they all don't but a clear majority of them do.

It's that simple.

	FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE
	Jan	Jan		Jan	Jan		Jan	Jan		Jan	Jan		Jan	Jan
Best Buy	2019	2018		2018	2017		2017	2016		2016	2015		2015	2014
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
Hubert Joly CEO	17,382	16,814		16,814	14,038		14,038	14,912		14,912	12,964		12,937	13,881
Corie Barry CFO	5,920	4,839		4,839	3,602		N/A	N/A
Michael Mohan COO	6,694	6,234		6,234	5,315		5,315	4,678		4,678	4,196		4,196	4,069
Keith Nelsen General Counsel	3,657	3,627		3,627	3,108		3,108	3,288		3,288	2,558		2,558	2,668
Kamy Scarlett Chief Human Resources Officer	N/A	N/A
Shari Ballard President Multi-Channel Retail	6,705	6,206		6,206	4,264		4,264	6,643		6,643	3,054		3,054	3,038
Sharon McCollam CFO							7,160	7,624		7,624	6,985		6,985	7,299
Totals	40,358	37,720		37,720	30,327		33,885	37,145		37,145	29,757		29,730	30,955
Annual % Change vs Prior Year	7.0%			24.4%			-8.8%			24.8%			-4.0%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change		8.7%
	FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE
	Feb	Feb		Feb	Feb		Feb	Feb		Feb	Feb		Feb	Feb
Best Buy	2012	2011		2011	2010		2010	2009		2009	2008		2008	2007
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
Hubert Joly CEO
Michael Mohan COO
Keith Nelsen General Counsel	1,320	686		686	893		N/A	N/A
Shari Ballard President Multi-Channel Retail	3,796	1,859		1,859	2,920		2,920	1,357		1,357	2,110		2,297	2,746
Sharon McCollam CFO
Brian Dunn Former CEO	8,215	5,030		5,030	10,232		10,232	2,380		2,380	3,964		3,872	4,544
James Muehlbauer Former CFO	4,012	2,142		2,142	2,958		2,958	2,307		2,307	1,377		1,287	1,050
Carol Surface Chief Human Resources Officer	2,230	3,275		N/A	N/A
Michael Vitelli Former President UA	3,759	1,836		1,836	2,420		2,420	919		919	1,062
Bradbury Anderson Former CEO										1,263	3,183		3,597	5,597
John Pershing Former EVP Human Capital										854	586
Robert Willett Former CEO										2,056	8,284		4,678	8,593
Totals	23,332	14,828		11,553	19,423		18,530	6,963		11,136	20,566		15,731	22,530
Annual % Change vs Prior Year	57.4%			-40.5%			166.1%			-45.9%			-30.2%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change		21.4%
10 Year Average Per Year % Change		15.0%