Santa Ana, California-Based Title Insurance Company First American Financial's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay and Employee Benefits Increase a Very Robust 15.7% Per Year During the Past Ten Years

The fifth Democratic 2020 Presidential candidate debate just held in Atlanta showed just how strong the field is.  I thought 8 of the 10 candidates had very strong performances, with Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker and Andrew Yang all having exceptional performances.  

A clear majority of the US is desperately seeking in the next US President someone who can unify the country.  Of all the Democratic Presidential candidates, Pete Buttigieg will be the best unifier of a very divided country.

Joe Biden is an exceptionally nice guy but his 77 years of age clearly impaired the effectiveness of his communication in this debate as it had in the other debates.

I thought Tulsi Gabbard's debate performance wasn't very Presidential.  

While Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both performed well in the debate, they are still both burdened significantly by their positions on Medicare For All, which is fiscally extremely expensive (probably cost $20 to $30 trillion over ten years which would compound to $50 to $80 trillion over twenty years) and which also doesn't permit citizens to keep their present health care insurance even if they really like it, and many do, including many union members who have fought hard to get the exceptional health care insurance that they now have and also including the rapidly-growing each year to now more than 20 million seniors who have chosen what they consider to be an attractive private health care insurance plan available in Medicare.

Barack Obama is spot on when he recently said that Democratic Presidential candidates shouldn’t pursue policies that were not rooted in reality.

And Obama was also spot on when he said that Democrats should push hard on the income inequality issue, arguing that this is an area where the room to talk about this in bold ways is greater than it was in 2008.

Further Obama said that it is very important for the Democratic Party to be clear and bold about saying that we are going to initiate structural changes that reduce that inequality.

The sixth Democratic 2020 Presidential candidate debate will be held on December 19, 2019 on the lovely campus of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.  

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 large Los Angeles area Companies were rewarded with in the past five to ten years.

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, 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.

I will be doing this research mostly by stock market capitalization and thus the 23rd Los Angeles area company I am addressing here is First American Financial.

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

First American Financial's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay and Employee Benefits Increase was a very robust 15.7% per year during the past ten years, which is the 15th highest of the 23 very large Los Angeles area companies I have addressed so far.

1. Snap Inc +3,017% per year for the past three years
2. Masimo Corp +240.0% per year for the past five years
3. The Trade Desk +125.4% per year for the past three years
4. Monster Beverage +95.1% per year for the past ten years
5. Live Nation Entertainment +89.3% per year for the past five years
6. Kilroy Realty Corp +43.0% per year for the past five years
7. Molina Healthcare +32.2% per year for the past ten years
8. Activision Blizzard +31.3% per year for the past five years
9. CBRE Group +29.8% per year for the past five years
10. Reliance Steel & Aluminum +26.1% per year for the past five years
11. Edison International +23.4% per year for the past five years 
12. Teledyne Technologies +22.5% per year for the past five years
13. Walt Disney Co +18.0% per year for the past five years
14. Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc +16.6% per year for the past five years
15. First American Financial +15.7% per year for the past ten years
16. American Homes 4 Rent +14.0% per year for the past four years
17. Public Storage +12.3% per year for the past ten years
18. HealthPeak Properties +9.7% per year for the past ten years
19. Douglas Emmett +7.2% per year for the past ten years
20. Oaktree Capital Group +5.8% per year for the past eight years
21. Avery Denison +5.1% per year for the past five years
22. Amgen +3.6% per year for the past five years
23. Edwards Lifesciences +2.3% per year for the past ten 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?

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.

And the only way it will be fixed is by wisely-designed US Government tax legislation.

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.

So how do you solve that problem?

Vote for US Senators, US House members and a US President who isn't controlled by US Corps.

It's that simple.

	FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE
	Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec
First American Financial	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
Gilmore CEO	8,403	8,330		8,330	8,048		8,048	5,727		5,727	5,596		5,596	4,812
DcGiorgio EVP	4,095	4,048		4,048	3,944		3,944	3,127		3,127	2,655		2,655	2,595
Leavell COO	3,916	4,053		4,053	3,962		3,962	2,981		2,981	3,036		3,036	2,496
Seaton CFO	3,161	2,831		2,831	2,597		2,597	2,116		2,116	1,415		1,415	1,216
Wajner Chief Accounting Officer	689	670		670	644		644	584		584	448		448	373
Totals	20,264	19,932		19,932	19,195		19,195	14,535		14,535	13,150		13,150	11,492
Annual % Change vs Prior Year	1.7%			3.8%			32.1%			10.5%			14.4%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change		12.5%
	FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE
	Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec		Dec	Dec
First American Financial	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
Gilmore CEO	4,812	5,472		5,472	4,579		4,579	6,255		6,255	3,228		3,228	3,221
DcGiorgio EVP	2,595	2,410		2,410	1,934		1,934	3,578		3,578	1,463		1,463	1,130
Leavell COO	2,496	2,433		2,433	1,663
Seaton CFO	1,216	800		800	481		481	441
Wajner Chief Accounting Officer	N/A	N/A
Valdes EVP	1,704	1,965		1,965	1,567		1,567	2,128		2,128	1,404		1,404	1,135
Kennedy Chairman							965	2,183		2,183	2,302		2,302	767
Totals	12,823	13,080		13,080	10,224		9,526	14,585		14,144	8,397		8,397	6,253
Annual % Change vs Prior Year	-2.0%			27.9%			-34.7%			68.4%			34.3%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change		18.8%
10 Year Average Per Year % Change		15.7%