Indianapolis, Indiana-Based Real Estate Investment Trust Simon Property Group's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay and Employee Benefits Increase Was an Off-the-Charts 53.7% Per Year During the Past Ten Years and 122.2% Just in the Most Recent Year 2018 Over 2017

"Red for Ed Action Day" is where thousands of Indiana public school teachers will be going to the Indianapolis State Capital Building on November 19, 2019 to lobby for better teacher pay and working conditions and also better resources for students.

It's good to see that Unions are now stepping up all over the US in order to obtain a better deal for their union members.  All Democratic Presidential candidates are on the side of unions in their talking points.  But I think the most effective in actually getting excellent outcomes for union members will be the financially-savvy, extremely bright Pete Buttigieg, who with his calm, good listener consideration-for-others demeanor, is also very gifted in the negotiating process.  Further, Mayor Pete's Health Care Plan will not take away union members excellent health care insurance coverage which they have fought hard to get, whereas Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren's Medicare For All Health Care Plan will.  

There have been many US Government laws enacted in the past two decades that have substantially increased income inequality expansion including the year after year after year of annual furtive tax extenders of predominately special interests additional tax loopholes, which both the Democratic and Republican Establishments voted for under the radar screen every year just before calendar year end, but nothing was even close to being more income inequality expanding than the Trump Tax Cuts Act.

On the other hand, 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.

My objective is to get a better handle on just why the US and particularly here Indiana has such massive continuing Income Inequality Expansion ..... it appears to be predominantly about the relative long-term annual pay and employee benefits percentage increases 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.

So far in my research of large US Corps headquartered in many US States all over the country, I have shown that their Top-Tier Executives have been rewarded continually with just enormous annual increases in pay and employee benefits, mostly stock equity compensation, even 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, there is a much broader and critical problem that needs to be solved.  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 it's not just in the private sector.  There are also large differences in the annual percentage raises of pay and employee benefits of executives and non-executives in the non-profit sector, including hospitals.

And it's also in state and local government entities.

With its decisions on state education funding with the resultant extremely low total annual percentage pay and employee benefit increases for decades but especially since Republicans have taken total control of the Indiana State Government, it's pretty clear to me that the Indiana State Government primarily views public school educators as simply Costs in a State Fiscal Budget, rather than what they are ..... the critical drivers of the future success of the State of Indiana.

I think it would be very helpful to see how these extremely low annual percentage pay and employee benefits increases of Indiana State public school teachers compares with the annual percentage pay and employee benefits increases of the Top-Tier Executives of Indiana publicly-held companies.  Publicly-held companies are required to disclose this Top-Tier Executive compensation information in their annual Proxy Statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Thus I will now be doing research and making posts on the annual pay and employee benefits percentage increases that the Top-Tier Executives of the largest Indiana Headquartered Companies were rewarded with in the past five or ten years in order to give a better understanding of the enormous gap between the annual percentage pay and employee benefits increases of the Top-Tier Executives of these Indiana Companies and the Indiana public school teachers.  

I will be doing this research by largest stock market capitalization and thus the third Indiana Company that I am addressing here is Real Estate Investment Trust Simon Property Group.

From annual compensation information contained in Company Proxy Statement filings with the US SEC, the chart below shows Simon Property Group's Top-Tier Executives Annual Total Compensation for each of two consecutive full years of employment for the past ten years.
  
Simon Property Group's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay and Employee Benefits Increase was an off-the-charts 53.7% per year during the past ten years, which is probably more than thirty times what Indiana State public school educators received in the past ten years.

	FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE
	Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec
Simon Property 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
David Simon Chairman and CEO	11,437	4,766		4,766	13,238		13,238	14,234		14,234	14,739		14,739	15,696
Richard Sokolov Vice Chairman	4,976	2,638		2,638	5,175		5,175	7,367		7,367	7,999		7,999	7,818
Steven Fivel General Counsel	3,449	1,240
John Rulli President of Malls	3,449	1,230		1,230	3,173
Andrew Juster Former CFO	1,328	1,217		1,217	3,594		3,594	3,656		3,656	3,401
Brian McDade CFO	N/A	N/A
David Contis President Simon Malls							4,157	4,257		4,257	3,757		3,757	3,704
James Barkley General Council										3,872	5,523		5,523	5,391
Stephen Sterrett CFO													932	5,288
Totals	24,639	11,091		9,851	25,180		26,164	29,514		33,386	35,419		32,950	37,897
Annual % Change vs Prior Year	122.2%			-60.9%			-11.4%			-5.7%			-13.1%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change		6.2%
	FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE
	Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec
Simon Property 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
David Simon Chairman and CEO	15,696	17,223		17,223	137,167		137,167	24,560		24,560	4,634		4,634	3,441
Richard Sokolov Vice Chairman	7,818	8,404		8,404	8,611		8,611	11,234		11,234	2,601		2,601	2,881
John Rulli Chief Admin Officer							3,419	6,476		6,476	1,289
David Contis President Simon Malls	3,704	4,246		N/A	N/A
James Barkley General Counsel	5,391	6,566		6,566	6,864		6,864	9,827		9,827	1,707		1,707	1,685
Stephen Sterrett CFO	5,288	6,514		6,514	6,662		6,662	9,026		9,026	1,581		1,581	1,569
Totals	37,897	42,953		38,707	159,304		162,723	61,123		61,123	11,812		10,523	9,576
Annual % Change vs Prior Year	-11.8%			-75.7%			166.2%			417.5%			9.9%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change		101.2%
10 Year Average Per Year % Change		53.7%