December 19, 2024 • 16 mins
Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
John Driscoll, former CareCentrix CEO and Walgreens executive, discusses his book Pay the People! Why Fair Pay is Good for Business and Great for America.
Hosts: Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. Producer: Paul Brennan.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim
Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
All Right, we want to get to something that's certainly
near and dear to us. I think about our conversation
with Peter atwater over at William and Mary the case
shape recovery. We talk about records that we've seen in
the market gains for a lot of Americans, and yet
that's not the case for everyone. The gap between also,
and this is kind of an extreme measure. How much
execs make versus how much those on the frontline of
the companies make is something we talk about a lot.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Check this out.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
According to the Economic Policy Institute, CEO compensation rose by
more than one thousand percent between nineteen seventy eight and
twenty twenty three, while the typical workers compensation tim rose
only about twenty four percent.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Here's another way to look at that gap. Last year,
CEOs made two hundred and ninety times as much as
the typical worker. This is coming from the Economic Policy Institute.
Back in nineteen sixty five, it was only twenty one
times as much as the typical worker. So it may
be surprising to you, not to our next guest who
says we need to quote pay the people. John Driscoll
is the former CEO at care Centrics. It was bought
(01:09):
by Walgreens Boots Alliance more than two years ago. He's
currently senior advisor at Walgreens Boots Alliance. He's had several
senior executive positions at a variety of healthcare companies. He's
also a member of Patriotic Millionaires, which calls itself a
collection of wealthy Americans fighting against the destabilizing concentration of
wealth and power in the United States.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
I have to tell you have about an hour's worth
of questions that we want to talk to you about,
just because there's so much going on in healthcare, as
you know right now. But let's talk wages and the
gaps and how we fix this. I mentioned Peter Atwater
the case shape recovery. Some people are doing really well.
There's a lot of Americans who are not, and whether
that plays out in politics and so many different aspects
of our society. You know, why is it that we
(01:51):
continue to see people who don't.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Make a living wage?
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Well, Carol, I think we've lost the string, you know,
I'm actually no longer working at Walgreens and focusing on healthcare.
I'm really focusing on making the case that it's good
for business and it's good for America if we can
get to a living wage. You know, we lost the
string a while ago. Between nineteen the nineteen thirties and
nineteen eighty, median productivity United States went up by about
(02:17):
ninety seven percent, and the median wages went up by
about ninety percent. Since nineteen eighty today to today, productivity
has gone up another ninety percent, but wages median wages
have only gone up by nine in the gap. That's
it's inconceivable that we should sort of push working class
(02:38):
folks farther and farther away from being able to take
part in this great capitalist adventure that's working for so
many of us. But you know, there's forty million people
in America who aren't earning a living wage.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Do you think the incentives are misaligned? Because if we
think about, and you've been part of publicly traded companies before,
what do investors care about? They care about the top
line and they care about the bottom.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
We never talk about. Okay, so the you know, whoa
how much Yeah, how much did you know? The people
on the front lines make you.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Know what they cared They care about automation and increasing margins.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah. But I think though that you're starting to see
things change you At my own.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Company, this is twenty eighteen with the Economic Roundtable. Well,
it's only gotten work.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I think that the Well, first of all, the trend's
a bit horrible for the last thirty years, as I
just pointed out. But at my own company, when we
froze executive salaries and doubled minimum wage twelve years ago,
retention went up, engagement went up, but productivity also went
up by about thirty percent. And you're starting to see
some of the most successful companies in America. Bank of
America JP Morgan also raised their wages to a living wage.
(03:43):
They did it as part of that business Roundtable commitment.
But what they found is that it it it lowered
the number of people who were leaving their jobs. Because
people who are working in minimum wage jobs are often
working two jobs, they're not as engaged. They found that
productivity went up with they invested in kind of a
if you want a fair or social contract, They found
(04:04):
they had a more successful and profitable business I think
the most important thing is we get the story out
that it is a productivity gain and a win for
the companies, and also that I don't think that capitalism
can easily be sustained if the bottom third of the
workforce isn't really part of If the company wins, you.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Win, So why don't we do it?
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Then you lay out a really good premise and argument,
why isn't it that more companies don't do that?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Well, that's what I am focused right now, Carol, on
selling that story and telling that story, because even for
the executives that have done it, they're surprised at how
it increases how long folks stay at jobs, it increases
their productivity. But that's not a story that many people
have told, and they certainly have to haven't told it
with very specific examples. You know, our ability to pay
(04:54):
claims grew by thirty percent, people stated our company for longer.
We had fewer people quietly quitting or quitting quitting very quickly,
And so I think it's selling and telling that story.
I also think that we're getting the message in a
lot of different ways. I think the reason why we
have so much rancor anger and discontentment in working class
(05:19):
voters of all races and backgrounds is they're not really
feeling like they're part part of business, of an America
that works, where business is clearly working and being successful.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Chaus Johnya.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
One of the things Tim and I have talked about
a lot, and you write about the restaurant in Association
and the restaurant industry that I feel like, first of all,
we feel like there's a tip jar everywhere, and to me,
it just says we're not paying workers enough.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
And I like, why aren't companies paying workers?
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Why do I have like I would rather pay more
for an item and just ensure that these workers are
getting paid. I think about the restaurant industry that you know, right,
they expect that they're going to be tips, Like.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
How do we kind of rework that? Well?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
I think we have to actually sell this, tell the story,
sell the story, and then organize. But there are plenty
of examples. Danny Meyer has been a leader and a
supporter of the movement that we're working on, which is
to eliminate kind of the tipped minimum wage, which is
still at three dollars and twenty five cents. It's unbelievable
(06:17):
and you start thinking if you're we're not talking about Danielle,
we're talking about most people are working at Denny's. And
when you increase the minimum wage and you get to
a fair wage. You know, California raised the fast food
minimum wage to twenty dollars an hour. I thought it
was an odd thing to do, but there was a
lot of complaints that that would harm the industry. There's
(06:41):
thousands more fast food jobs.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Now, why did you think it was an odd thing
to do?
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Well, I think it was odd to just bring it
up for one category. For me, the most important thing
is to eliminate tip, minimum wage across the board and
get to a living wage. Get to I mean again,
you've got forty million people where they're working full time
jobs and one job doesn't afford them enough to live
independently and pay their bills.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
What do you think of the most wealthy people in
the world right now? Someone like Elon Musk, for example,
whose fortune has increased by roughly two hundred billion dollars
just since the election, certainly took a haircut today with
the sell off in Tesla. What do you make of
the concentration of wealth at the very top?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Well, I think one of the things that we actually
got me excited about Patriotic millionaires is that we I
was deeply offended by the notion of the elimination the
reduction of taxes on the most wealthy, and the reduction
of the estate tax, because I think the threat of
intergenerational oligarchic wealth of massive scale, intentionally or unintentionally disdistorting
(07:47):
the politics of the moment is a real challenge. And
that was twenty years ago when I started, when I worked,
started working with patriotic millionaires. But I don't think the
biggest problem we have is the a is the massive
accumulation at the top. Because part of that's related to technology,
it's the fact that we cut off the bottom third
of workers in America, and that's not going to be
(08:09):
good for the economy. If more and more people feel
like they're not part of the American dream. We're the
only country that dream is associated with the country. Our
country is held together by this notion that we're in
it together. If that, if the bottom third of America does,
from a wages and wealth perspective, doesn't feel like they're
part of it, I worry about democracy. I think there
(08:31):
are plenty of things you could do in tax policy
to increase to certainly make sure that, as Warren Buffett says,
he isn't paying a lower percentage of taxes than his assistant.
I think we should have a fair inheritance sex so
we don't have these massive concentrations of wealth. But the
urgent problem of today is to pay people who are
working hard, leaning in people who are at at the
(08:54):
bottom third of the wage scale, who are really you know,
running up a down escalator of costs, particularly a time
of an.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
So how do we get executives to start thinking about it?
We have many conversations with CEOs. We often do hear
about having to pay up for talent, but I'm assuming
they mean executives and folks kind of higher up in
their company and not necessarily everyone. How do we get
them to think about that all across all of the
workers that they paid for.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Well, yeah, I don't know how we convince them. But
the voters are already there. You know. The raising the
minimum wage to a higher level has won in almost
I think it's I think it's nineteen out of twenty states.
It's been put on the ballot in the last election cycle,
raising the minimum wage won by six points in Missouri.
It went easily in Alaska. Those are both Trump plus
(09:40):
ten or twenty states. And the Republican attempt to reduce
the raising the tip minimum wage actually was defeated at
the ballot box in Arizona. So the voters are already there.
I think the only way we're going to get there
today is politically, because if you have to convince one
executive at a time will be here forever through voters.
(10:02):
We have to we have to put it on the ballot,
we have to get it through Congress. And I think
what's what's what what What's remarkable to me is the
Republican voters are already there.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Is it a zero sum game? Like is it uh?
If to pay workers more, do executives have to earn less?
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Not? Not at all? I mean there is. I mean
the most recent example of raising fast food minimum wage
and creating more fast food jobs is the example of
the last couple of years. But when the restaurant associations
we talked about in the book actually pulled its members,
not its lobbyists, in d C, they found that many
(10:41):
of them actually wanted to increase those wages. There's a
there's a Nobel Prize winning economist who studied what happened
when New York raised its wages in hospitality and Pennsylvania didn't.
And what found is what they found is that the
New York businesses actually grew, which means those business owners
(11:02):
made more money even though the wages that they had
to pay were higher.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Well, do you think raising the minimum wage in one
sector like restaurants does raise minimum wage across other sectors too?
You don't think so. So you don't think like, if
you're getting paid twenty dollars an hour to work at McDonald's,
then the warehouse owner has to raise their wages to
that or else their employees are going to go work
at McDonald's.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
When is the burger going to go up?
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I'm really going to go up? I Well, the reality
is the percentage of labor that goes into the Big
mac is actually pretty trivial. Probably to pay a living
wage at McDonald's, it would probably go by four to
five cents per burger. So I think it's not it's
deminimous play.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
A little bit Devil's advocate here, No.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Absolutely and where, But where I was going with is
it's we're moving too slowly. It's time to actually change
the laws, change the rules, and make sure that everybody
starts to be everybody at the bottom end of the
of the pay scale is paid a living wage, and
that's true for folks. To eliminate the tip minimum wage,
I would eliminate the discount for disabled workers. We have
(12:07):
to get to the point where all of these executives,
all executives who believe in the dignity of work, start
paying wages that are equivalent to dignified pay.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
We have this terminal function on the Bloomberg terminal where
we can look up executive compensation. So forgive me for
being fresh, but you are part of a group that
does argue that many people should be getting paid more
and executives sometimes should be getting paid less than twenty
twenty three, your total compensation was over eleven million dollars.
Was that too much? Were you paid too much?
Speaker 1 (12:38):
I have been the beneficiary of a capitalist system that
overpays the top and isn't paying enough at the bottom.
But I am absolutely certain and I'm that we could
we could raise get to a living wage level and
it would have It would make no big dent on
(12:58):
the comp at the top. But let me also say
that as a patriotic millionaire, I am on the record
as saying I think we should increase taxes on people
like me and increase the state tax for all of us.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
How high should they be, because if you go back
in history, I mean, the top marginal tax rate used
to would shock you know, fifty sixty years ago, would
shock people today. Yeah, I mean it was insanely high.
It was insanely high.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Let's start by not approving, not extending the tax cuts
that Trump put in place when he was in office.
Let's start by getting to a level that we were
paying during the Clinton administration, which was one of the
greatest periods of prosperity, and we were actually paying down
(13:46):
the debt. We have a one point seven trillion dollar
deficit this year. It is not going to be news
to anyone who can do math that all of us
are going to be paying taxes. And I think it
should be very clear that people like me should be
paying more taxes most Yeah, but.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
We've been hearing this for a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
I mean I remember being out at milk And a
few years ago and people saying, yep, it's time for
us to pay more taxes, really wealthy individuals, and yet
here we are.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
One thing I want to.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Ask you, because we're running out of time, is that
if we believe in a free market, I'm looking at
your book about some of the myths that are out
there that if we pay people a living wage. You know,
some of the myths that you kind of address, And
one is this isn't an issue for the government because
the free market will naturally take care of it. We
saw wages go up during the pandemic and out of
it because there was a shortage of workers and so
supplied demand. Free market it was at work. But I
(14:30):
don't know that that will continue. Will the free market
kind of help bring this about?
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Well, I think if you look at where wages are
right now, even during the pandemic, while there was a
slight bump in wages at the bottom, costs went up
at twice the rate that wages went up. And so no,
the free market has failed. And by the way it
worked when we actually had a minimum wage that was
(14:56):
closer to reflecting a living wage, which drove the greatest
period economic success the world has ever seen between the
forties and the eighties. We unhooked that the bottom third
of the workforce at that point. And I think we've
got a pretty angry, unhappy electorate and a lot of
people living in near poverty and that's just not fair.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
We just had a conversation with was it the CEO
of Feeding in America, Yeah, and just talked about, you know,
the people who just don't have enough food on their table.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Food and security in this country, insecurity.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
And just incredible the percentages and.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
See one out of three or four kids, one out
of five households. That is unacceptable. And by the way,
paying a living wage is not going to cost capitalism,
it's actually going to improve our markets in business thirty seconds?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Is a living wage the same in every state, in
every city. It's got to be depending on the locale.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
No, I think that the FEDS can set should set
a living wage at the national median, and then you
can vary it up or down based on I mean
vary it up rather based on what the true cost.
The costs in LA and New York are very different
than the cost in Jackson, Mississippi, or you know, or
or West Texas. You have to vary it. But the
(16:07):
minimum is so low right now as to be insulting
to workers.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
I feel like you're preaching to the choir. John drisc
will come back soon. This was an important conversations. Of course,
former CEF care centric his new book, Pay the People
Why fair pay is good for business and great for
America
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim
Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
All Right, we want to get to something that's certainly
near and dear to us. I think about our conversation
with Peter atwater over at William and Mary the case
shape recovery. We talk about records that we've seen in
the market gains for a lot of Americans, and yet
that's not the case for everyone. The gap between also,
and this is kind of an extreme measure. How much
execs make versus how much those on the frontline of
the companies make is something we talk about a lot.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Check this out.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
According to the Economic Policy Institute, CEO compensation rose by
more than one thousand percent between nineteen seventy eight and
twenty twenty three, while the typical workers compensation tim rose
only about twenty four percent.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Here's another way to look at that gap. Last year,
CEOs made two hundred and ninety times as much as
the typical worker. This is coming from the Economic Policy Institute.
Back in nineteen sixty five, it was only twenty one
times as much as the typical worker. So it may
be surprising to you, not to our next guest who
says we need to quote pay the people. John Driscoll
is the former CEO at care Centrics. It was bought
(01:09):
by Walgreens Boots Alliance more than two years ago. He's
currently senior advisor at Walgreens Boots Alliance. He's had several
senior executive positions at a variety of healthcare companies. He's
also a member of Patriotic Millionaires, which calls itself a
collection of wealthy Americans fighting against the destabilizing concentration of
wealth and power in the United States.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
I have to tell you have about an hour's worth
of questions that we want to talk to you about,
just because there's so much going on in healthcare, as
you know right now. But let's talk wages and the
gaps and how we fix this. I mentioned Peter Atwater
the case shape recovery. Some people are doing really well.
There's a lot of Americans who are not, and whether
that plays out in politics and so many different aspects
of our society. You know, why is it that we
(01:51):
continue to see people who don't.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Make a living wage?
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Well, Carol, I think we've lost the string, you know,
I'm actually no longer working at Walgreens and focusing on healthcare.
I'm really focusing on making the case that it's good
for business and it's good for America if we can
get to a living wage. You know, we lost the
string a while ago. Between nineteen the nineteen thirties and
nineteen eighty, median productivity United States went up by about
(02:17):
ninety seven percent, and the median wages went up by
about ninety percent. Since nineteen eighty today to today, productivity
has gone up another ninety percent, but wages median wages
have only gone up by nine in the gap. That's
it's inconceivable that we should sort of push working class
(02:38):
folks farther and farther away from being able to take
part in this great capitalist adventure that's working for so
many of us. But you know, there's forty million people
in America who aren't earning a living wage.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Do you think the incentives are misaligned? Because if we
think about, and you've been part of publicly traded companies before,
what do investors care about? They care about the top
line and they care about the bottom.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
We never talk about. Okay, so the you know, whoa
how much Yeah, how much did you know? The people
on the front lines make you.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Know what they cared They care about automation and increasing margins.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah. But I think though that you're starting to see
things change you At my own.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Company, this is twenty eighteen with the Economic Roundtable. Well,
it's only gotten work.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I think that the Well, first of all, the trend's
a bit horrible for the last thirty years, as I
just pointed out. But at my own company, when we
froze executive salaries and doubled minimum wage twelve years ago,
retention went up, engagement went up, but productivity also went
up by about thirty percent. And you're starting to see
some of the most successful companies in America. Bank of
America JP Morgan also raised their wages to a living wage.
(03:43):
They did it as part of that business Roundtable commitment.
But what they found is that it it it lowered
the number of people who were leaving their jobs. Because
people who are working in minimum wage jobs are often
working two jobs, they're not as engaged. They found that
productivity went up with they invested in kind of a
if you want a fair or social contract, They found
(04:04):
they had a more successful and profitable business I think
the most important thing is we get the story out
that it is a productivity gain and a win for
the companies, and also that I don't think that capitalism
can easily be sustained if the bottom third of the
workforce isn't really part of If the company wins, you.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Win, So why don't we do it?
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Then you lay out a really good premise and argument,
why isn't it that more companies don't do that?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Well, that's what I am focused right now, Carol, on
selling that story and telling that story, because even for
the executives that have done it, they're surprised at how
it increases how long folks stay at jobs, it increases
their productivity. But that's not a story that many people
have told, and they certainly have to haven't told it
with very specific examples. You know, our ability to pay
(04:54):
claims grew by thirty percent, people stated our company for longer.
We had fewer people quietly quitting or quitting quitting very quickly,
And so I think it's selling and telling that story.
I also think that we're getting the message in a
lot of different ways. I think the reason why we
have so much rancor anger and discontentment in working class
(05:19):
voters of all races and backgrounds is they're not really
feeling like they're part part of business, of an America
that works, where business is clearly working and being successful.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Chaus Johnya.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
One of the things Tim and I have talked about
a lot, and you write about the restaurant in Association
and the restaurant industry that I feel like, first of all,
we feel like there's a tip jar everywhere, and to me,
it just says we're not paying workers enough.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
And I like, why aren't companies paying workers?
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Why do I have like I would rather pay more
for an item and just ensure that these workers are
getting paid. I think about the restaurant industry that you know, right,
they expect that they're going to be tips, Like.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
How do we kind of rework that? Well?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
I think we have to actually sell this, tell the story,
sell the story, and then organize. But there are plenty
of examples. Danny Meyer has been a leader and a
supporter of the movement that we're working on, which is
to eliminate kind of the tipped minimum wage, which is
still at three dollars and twenty five cents. It's unbelievable
(06:17):
and you start thinking if you're we're not talking about Danielle,
we're talking about most people are working at Denny's. And
when you increase the minimum wage and you get to
a fair wage. You know, California raised the fast food
minimum wage to twenty dollars an hour. I thought it
was an odd thing to do, but there was a
lot of complaints that that would harm the industry. There's
(06:41):
thousands more fast food jobs.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Now, why did you think it was an odd thing
to do?
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Well, I think it was odd to just bring it
up for one category. For me, the most important thing
is to eliminate tip, minimum wage across the board and
get to a living wage. Get to I mean again,
you've got forty million people where they're working full time
jobs and one job doesn't afford them enough to live
independently and pay their bills.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
What do you think of the most wealthy people in
the world right now? Someone like Elon Musk, for example,
whose fortune has increased by roughly two hundred billion dollars
just since the election, certainly took a haircut today with
the sell off in Tesla. What do you make of
the concentration of wealth at the very top?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Well, I think one of the things that we actually
got me excited about Patriotic millionaires is that we I
was deeply offended by the notion of the elimination the
reduction of taxes on the most wealthy, and the reduction
of the estate tax, because I think the threat of
intergenerational oligarchic wealth of massive scale, intentionally or unintentionally disdistorting
(07:47):
the politics of the moment is a real challenge. And
that was twenty years ago when I started, when I worked,
started working with patriotic millionaires. But I don't think the
biggest problem we have is the a is the massive
accumulation at the top. Because part of that's related to technology,
it's the fact that we cut off the bottom third
of workers in America, and that's not going to be
(08:09):
good for the economy. If more and more people feel
like they're not part of the American dream. We're the
only country that dream is associated with the country. Our
country is held together by this notion that we're in
it together. If that, if the bottom third of America does,
from a wages and wealth perspective, doesn't feel like they're
part of it, I worry about democracy. I think there
(08:31):
are plenty of things you could do in tax policy
to increase to certainly make sure that, as Warren Buffett says,
he isn't paying a lower percentage of taxes than his assistant.
I think we should have a fair inheritance sex so
we don't have these massive concentrations of wealth. But the
urgent problem of today is to pay people who are
working hard, leaning in people who are at at the
(08:54):
bottom third of the wage scale, who are really you know,
running up a down escalator of costs, particularly a time
of an.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
So how do we get executives to start thinking about it?
We have many conversations with CEOs. We often do hear
about having to pay up for talent, but I'm assuming
they mean executives and folks kind of higher up in
their company and not necessarily everyone. How do we get
them to think about that all across all of the
workers that they paid for.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Well, yeah, I don't know how we convince them. But
the voters are already there. You know. The raising the
minimum wage to a higher level has won in almost
I think it's I think it's nineteen out of twenty states.
It's been put on the ballot in the last election cycle,
raising the minimum wage won by six points in Missouri.
It went easily in Alaska. Those are both Trump plus
(09:40):
ten or twenty states. And the Republican attempt to reduce
the raising the tip minimum wage actually was defeated at
the ballot box in Arizona. So the voters are already there.
I think the only way we're going to get there
today is politically, because if you have to convince one
executive at a time will be here forever through voters.
(10:02):
We have to we have to put it on the ballot,
we have to get it through Congress. And I think
what's what's what what What's remarkable to me is the
Republican voters are already there.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Is it a zero sum game? Like is it uh?
If to pay workers more, do executives have to earn less?
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Not? Not at all? I mean there is. I mean
the most recent example of raising fast food minimum wage
and creating more fast food jobs is the example of
the last couple of years. But when the restaurant associations
we talked about in the book actually pulled its members,
not its lobbyists, in d C, they found that many
(10:41):
of them actually wanted to increase those wages. There's a
there's a Nobel Prize winning economist who studied what happened
when New York raised its wages in hospitality and Pennsylvania didn't.
And what found is what they found is that the
New York businesses actually grew, which means those business owners
(11:02):
made more money even though the wages that they had
to pay were higher.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Well, do you think raising the minimum wage in one
sector like restaurants does raise minimum wage across other sectors too?
You don't think so. So you don't think like, if
you're getting paid twenty dollars an hour to work at McDonald's,
then the warehouse owner has to raise their wages to
that or else their employees are going to go work
at McDonald's.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
When is the burger going to go up?
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I'm really going to go up? I Well, the reality
is the percentage of labor that goes into the Big
mac is actually pretty trivial. Probably to pay a living
wage at McDonald's, it would probably go by four to
five cents per burger. So I think it's not it's
deminimous play.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
A little bit Devil's advocate here, No.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Absolutely and where, But where I was going with is
it's we're moving too slowly. It's time to actually change
the laws, change the rules, and make sure that everybody
starts to be everybody at the bottom end of the
of the pay scale is paid a living wage, and
that's true for folks. To eliminate the tip minimum wage,
I would eliminate the discount for disabled workers. We have
(12:07):
to get to the point where all of these executives,
all executives who believe in the dignity of work, start
paying wages that are equivalent to dignified pay.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
We have this terminal function on the Bloomberg terminal where
we can look up executive compensation. So forgive me for
being fresh, but you are part of a group that
does argue that many people should be getting paid more
and executives sometimes should be getting paid less than twenty
twenty three, your total compensation was over eleven million dollars.
Was that too much? Were you paid too much?
Speaker 1 (12:38):
I have been the beneficiary of a capitalist system that
overpays the top and isn't paying enough at the bottom.
But I am absolutely certain and I'm that we could
we could raise get to a living wage level and
it would have It would make no big dent on
(12:58):
the comp at the top. But let me also say
that as a patriotic millionaire, I am on the record
as saying I think we should increase taxes on people
like me and increase the state tax for all of us.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
How high should they be, because if you go back
in history, I mean, the top marginal tax rate used
to would shock you know, fifty sixty years ago, would
shock people today. Yeah, I mean it was insanely high.
It was insanely high.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Let's start by not approving, not extending the tax cuts
that Trump put in place when he was in office.
Let's start by getting to a level that we were
paying during the Clinton administration, which was one of the
greatest periods of prosperity, and we were actually paying down
(13:46):
the debt. We have a one point seven trillion dollar
deficit this year. It is not going to be news
to anyone who can do math that all of us
are going to be paying taxes. And I think it
should be very clear that people like me should be
paying more taxes most Yeah, but.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
We've been hearing this for a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
I mean I remember being out at milk And a
few years ago and people saying, yep, it's time for
us to pay more taxes, really wealthy individuals, and yet
here we are.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
One thing I want to.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Ask you, because we're running out of time, is that
if we believe in a free market, I'm looking at
your book about some of the myths that are out
there that if we pay people a living wage. You know,
some of the myths that you kind of address, And
one is this isn't an issue for the government because
the free market will naturally take care of it. We
saw wages go up during the pandemic and out of
it because there was a shortage of workers and so
supplied demand. Free market it was at work. But I
(14:30):
don't know that that will continue. Will the free market
kind of help bring this about?
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Well, I think if you look at where wages are
right now, even during the pandemic, while there was a
slight bump in wages at the bottom, costs went up
at twice the rate that wages went up. And so no,
the free market has failed. And by the way it
worked when we actually had a minimum wage that was
(14:56):
closer to reflecting a living wage, which drove the greatest
period economic success the world has ever seen between the
forties and the eighties. We unhooked that the bottom third
of the workforce at that point. And I think we've
got a pretty angry, unhappy electorate and a lot of
people living in near poverty and that's just not fair.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
We just had a conversation with was it the CEO
of Feeding in America, Yeah, and just talked about, you know,
the people who just don't have enough food on their table.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Food and security in this country, insecurity.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
And just incredible the percentages and.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
See one out of three or four kids, one out
of five households. That is unacceptable. And by the way,
paying a living wage is not going to cost capitalism,
it's actually going to improve our markets in business thirty seconds?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Is a living wage the same in every state, in
every city. It's got to be depending on the locale.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
No, I think that the FEDS can set should set
a living wage at the national median, and then you
can vary it up or down based on I mean
vary it up rather based on what the true cost.
The costs in LA and New York are very different
than the cost in Jackson, Mississippi, or you know, or
or West Texas. You have to vary it. But the
(16:07):
minimum is so low right now as to be insulting
to workers.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
I feel like you're preaching to the choir. John drisc
will come back soon. This was an important conversations. Of course,
former CEF care centric his new book, Pay the People
Why fair pay is good for business and great for
America
Hosts And Creators
Tim Stenovec
Carol Massar
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