Why McDonald’s Can Pay $15/hr Without Hurting Inflation

It always has confused me when the lowest earning employee asks for more money; the world freaks out over inflation, but CEOs making millions and millions more per year are not talked about when discussing inflation.

At least for me, when I discuss inflation and paying the bottom employees more, I also mean you take that money away from the CEOs who rake in millions per year while their employees do all the work. If a CEO were to take a five-million-dollar decrease in salary, they could afford to give 481 employees a five dollar an hour raises. People that are against raising the minimum wage usually have something to say about adding all this money will cause inflation. Well, there you go, I did not add any new money, and 481 people's lives improved, and one person's life remained virtually the same.

Now, why can McDonald's pay their lowest employees $15/hr? Because their CEO has a salary of less than a million dollars. Chris Kempczinski, CEO of McDonald's, salary was $963,506, and he received no bonuses. A company that made almost five billion dollars, and their CEO earns less than a million in salary. McDonald's is an excellent example of paying your employees more without causing inflation to skyrocket. As you raise wages, you lower CEO salary.