In last week’s CI CyberNews CyberPoll, we asked if it is reasonable that Michael Duke, Walmart’s CEO, earns nearly 2000 times that of the average Walmart employee. Of the total respondents, 54.8% do not believe that the discrepancy is reasonable, while 40.5% believe it is reasonable and 4.7% are unsure.

Comments included:

“Walmart is now the largest company in the world and Michael Duke should receive compensation in accordance with that standing. He is at the head of a retailer that has gone beyond surviving a global recession to thriving in economic conditions that have been disastrous for much of the retail market.”

“This discrepancy is not even close to being reasonable.”

“The bigger question is how much of the stockholders’ dividends lowered from this amount.”

“Ridiculous that Walmart CEO makes that many times the average employee there. I expect that from this greedy company that pays slave labor wages with poor benefits and hopes that employees turn over so they don’t too expensive. I NEVER shop at Walmart!”

“Is a Fortune 500 company CEO worth a salary in the millions? You bet. But I’d cap it at $5 million. And this is a separate issue from the question of employee salaries; plainly they are not being paid a living wage. Walmart is preying on the least advantaged in our society.”

“I would be more interested in what his salary is relative to the other professional staff that are on salary. Hourly staff don’t really count. They are typically low skilled and expendable to some degree. They also have lots of turnover which keeps the average salary of the hourly worker low. So this should be relative to managers and executives (salaried) not hourly. Also, why is he worth this and if there is no profit is there no salary? If salary is tied to performance and the company can support the salary load, this is not a problem.” -- John Clark, Federal Employee

“Obviously, the board of Walmart feels the position warrants a $20 million dollar salary. The average employee gets paid what they do because Walmart can find enough people to work for that amount of money. It’s all about supply and demand. If there were 10,000 qualified CEOs out of work and willing to work for less than $20 million, I’m guessing that position would not pay that much. If he gave $19 million a year back to the 1.2 million employees they would only see an increase of less than 2 cents per hour. At the same time, I do feel corporate greed is the root of many of our problems here in the U.S.”


Many thanks to all of the CI CyberNews readers who have participated in our CyberPolls. Not a CI CyberNews subscriber? Follow this link to sign up for your free subscription!