Top corporate executive Helena Foulkes has now entered the Democratic primary for governor in Rhode Island.
Shortly after she launched her campaign with a well-polished video and sent a “letter to friends,” Foulkes Tweeted that she was for “equality for all.”
But her track record as President of Retail at CVS and then as CEO of Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) shows that there was very little equality for all when it came to compensation.
Foulkes' tenure at HBC was short -- just two years, and she earned more than $29 million annually. In contrast, frontline workers at the retailer made approximately $30,000 dollars.
Now, as a candidate, Foulkes will likely need to explain how her corporate compensation matches the Democratic party's ideals.
In 2020, at 45 major U.S. companies, the CEO took home 1,000 times or more what a median worker earned in 2019 and 2020, according to the AFL-CIO. The annual report on the discrepancy shows the growing gap between corporate compensation and what workers make.
Leading Senate Democrats in Congress are pushing the "Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act" which would penalize companies that pay their CEOs or other highest-paid employees 50 times more than the median pay for workers.
For Foulkes, she would have faced a lot of taxes. For most of the last decade, she consistently earned 100 times -- and upward -- the salaries of the workers she oversaw.
Original source can be found here.
