New York, NY – On this week’s exciting edition of Stuck Nation Radio we’re taking a hard look at “Executive Excess” across the U.S. and the ongoing problem of affordable housing across the five boroughs. (Listen Below)
PART I: Corporate CEO Abuse – It’s worse than you think. During the pandemic, some of the nation’s biggest corporations boosted CEO compensation while cutting their workers pay. I interview Sarah Anderson, the Global Economy Director of the Institute for Policy Studies and lead author of IPS’s blockbuster “Executive Excess” report that tracks 300 of the U.S. biggest corporations with the lowest median pay for workers in 2020. Dozens of these firms spent billions on stock buy backs, boosted CEO pay, and cut workers compensation. Consider home improvement company Lowes. It spent $13 billion on stock buybacks, paid their CEO over $17 million while worker pay fell 7.6 percent. The money diverted to the stock buyback would have been enough to give the company’s 325,000 employees a $40,000 annual raise.
PART 2: WHY PUBLIC HOUSING TENANTS AND CITY WORKERS DOUBT ALBANY’s NYCHA TRUST DEAL: Veteran community and housing organizer Marquis Jenkins, the co-founder of the Residents to Preserve Public Housing, Joel Kupferman, one of New York City’s leading environmental attorneys, and Josh Barnett, president of DC 37’s Local 375 weigh in. The panel discusses the downside of Albany’s so-called NYCHA-Trust plan which its boosters say will provide billions in badly needed investment in the city’s long neglected public housing. Our guests analyze the small print of the plan which they say could lead to privatization or worse.
