It might help dampen some of the hoped-for emotion to look at the methodology behind the data upon which your scenario is based, which is provided annually by the AFL-CIO usually in May-June.

First, annual worker pay is based on an average workweek of less than 34 hours per week. This data isn’t broken down further by worker’s age or experience, part-time or full-time status, or size of company. Fringe benefits (yes, they exist) aren’t included. By adjusting worker wages to a 50-hour work-week and adding the value of worker fringe benefits, worker compensation increases to $72,000 (2016 data).

Second, the CEO data is based on data for CEOs in the largest 500 companies who are working full-time in their prime earning years. That’s compared to the cash wages only for 99 million workers a material portion of which work part-time. While no data is available for how much CEOs work, in my experience any CEO who works less than 50 hours a week isn’t likely to keep that job for very long. If the AFL-CIO was calculated based on data for the over 20,000 CEOs in American companies, the average annual CEO pay and benefits for this broader group is about $220,000.

Now that we’ve trimmed the fat and pork from the study’s data, well, …, this is still outrageous, no?! The AFL-CIO’s not-so-subtle solution of course is income redistribution. How would that work? If we took the top 500 CEOs $6.2B in 2015 compensation and redistributed it to the 99 million workers in the study, they’d receive an annual pay increase of $63 before taxes, which would buy enough beer to fill half your bathtub. Happy?

What’s really troubling about this annual charade is that citizens, media and politicians who claim to have inquiring, analytical, open minds don’t question its statistical hi-jinks. While some CEOs at the head of very large multinational companies command head-snapping compensation packages, the AFL-CIO data provides no basis to claim that workers’ pay is stagnant or that shareholders are being ripped off.

Instead, we’re treated to cartoons….