Warsaw, Indiana-Based Health Care Manufacturer Biomet Inc's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay and Employee Benefits Increase Was a Completely Off-the-Charts 120.5% Per Year During the Five Years (2010 to 2014) Before It Was Acquired By Zimmer in 2015

"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 Indiana public school teachers 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.

Also for decades, but particularly since Republicans have taken complete control of the Indiana State Government, it appears that Indiana Public School Superintendents or their equivalents as well as their direct reports have received annual percentage pay and employee benefits increases which have been substantially higher than what public school teachers have received.

In all fairness, going forward there should be some form of clawbacks for these past excessive pay and employee benefits rewarded to members of these Indiana State Education Administrations at the expense of Indiana public school teachers.

After all, the clear driver of Indiana’s future are the public education teachers in the classroom, not the Education Administration.

Thus Indiana State Legislatures should set maximum annual percentage pay and employee benefits increases for every Superintendent and his/her direct reports to correct for this unfairness in pay. 

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 generally by largest stock market capitalization and thus the fifth Indiana Company that I am addressing here is health care manufacturer Biomet Inc.

From annual compensation information contained in Company 10-K filings with the US SEC, the chart at the very bottom below shows Biomet Inc's Top-Tier Executives Annual Total Compensation for each of two consecutive full years of employment for the five years before it was acquired by Zimmer in 2015.
  
Biomet Inc's Top-Tier Executives Average Annual Pay and Employee Benefits Increase was a completely off-the-charts 120.5% per year during the five years before it was acquired in 2015, which is the very highest of the five large Indiana headquartered companies I have addressed so far and also which is probably close to 100 times what Indiana State public school educators received per year in those five years.

1. Biomet +120.5% per year for five years
2. Simon Property Group +53.7% per year for the past ten years
3. Zimmer Biomet Holdings +15.3% per year for the past five years
4. Anthem Inc +13.5% per year for the past ten years
5. Eli Lilly % Co +13.3% per year for the past five years

	FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE		FYE	FYE
	May	May		May	May		May	May		May	May		May	May
Biomet Inc	2014	2013		2013	2012		2012	2011		2011	2010		2010	2009
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
Jeffrey Binder CEO	2,920	20,615		20,615	2,094		2,094	10,027		10,027	4,786		4,786	1,573
Daniel Florin CFO	1,036	4,446		4,446	826		826	2,413		2,413	1,443		1,443	712
Daniel Williamson President Reconstructive Joints	N/A	N/A
Renaat Vermeulen President EMEA	N/A	N/A
Adam Johnson President Spine, Microfixation and Bone Healing	894	3,443
Robin Barney SVP World Wide Operations				3,100	637
Bradley Tandy General Counsel				2,891	686
Maggie Anderson President Biomet 3i							514	2,282		N/A	N/A
Jon Serbousek President Orthopedics							798	2,363		2,363	1,389		1,389	3,522
Glen Kashuba President Trauma Biomet Spine													1,291	807
Totals	4,850	28,504		31,052	4,243		4,232	17,085		14,803	7,618		8,909	6,614
Annual % Change vs Prior Year	-83.0%			631.8%			-75.2%			94.3%			34.7%
5 Year Average Per Year % Change		120.5%