In principle, I have no problem with pay disparity. I see no equivalency between the amount paid to a CEO, and their entry-level employees (with the assumption that the entry-level employee is making a livable wage).

They have different jobs with different responsibilities and therefore different compensation packages. It's not pie; if the CEO gets more, the entry-level clerk does not get less.

The ONLY context within which pay disparity is an issue, is in publicly-traded companies and their quarterly earnings reports.

For example, there is absolutely no reason why every McDonald's worker couldn't be paid $15/hr. McDonald's makes plenty of money to support that.

The reason they don't, is because shareholders are conditioned to expect their investment portfolios to constantly increase. So if McDonald's only made $1000 last quarter, instead of $250m, they would get hammered by their investors. The fact is that BOTH numbers show a profit, and therefore should be fine.

I'll say it again: It's Not Pie. McDonald's CEO famously makes $21 million dollars a year but his salary is only $1.1m of that. Everything else is bonuses for hitting short-sighted goals. The company made a PROFIT of $5.9bn last year. That is equal to two hundred and eighty times the entire compensation package for the CEO.

Trying to construct some sort of class warfare between the CEO and the entry-level employee is a diversionary tactic by the institutional investors who have a nice simple formula that they are very invested in. Change that valuation formula, and now investors have to do actual work for their money. And they don't want that.

(Side note: This is also why it is critically important to make sure any product or service is not being allowed to externalize any of its costs. No tax cuts. No breaks. No lobbying for less strict environmental regulations, so they can pollute the water table, and give people downstream cancer, that is then paid for with Government programs to clean up the waste, and deal with the sick people. Every company must pay their FULL BILL for all of their costs, including externalized ones, and that needs to reflect in the cost of the product. A $15 Happy Meal is a very different thing from a $3.95 one.)