Youโve probably heard that everyone is โpaid what theyโre worth.โ Donโt buy it.
According to this mythology, workers at the bottom are โunskilledโ and donโt deserve more than what they currently earn.
Minimum wage workers at McDonaldโs are paid what they are worth in the so-called โfree market.โ If they were worth more, theyโd earn more.
By the same logic, the CEO of McDonaldโs is worth his multi-million dollar compensation package.
The notion that people are paid what theyโre โworthโ is by now so deeply ingrained in the public consciousness that many who earn very little assume itโs their own fault that they donโt earn more. That they simply lack the skills they need to be paid more.
But thereโs no such thing as unskilled workers. Only underpaid workers. Their productivity โ that is the value of what they produce โ has been growing for decades. The problem is that their wages havenโt kept pace with their productivity.
The โpaid what youโre worthโ mythology also lures the unsuspecting into thinking nothing can be done to change what people are paid. Itโs simply the way the market works.
Meanwhile, according to this same view, CEOs who rake in tens of millions and Wall Street traders who rake in hundreds of millions, are simply being paid what theyโre โworthโ because thatโs what the market has dictated.
Rubbish. The โpaid what youโre worthโ fairytale ignores power and disregards policies that have made inequality skyrocket. Like the demise of antitrust enforcement, which has given big corporations the power to set prices, make record profits, and reward their CEOs unprecedented compensation. This fairytale ignores the attacks on labor unions that have reduced union membership from over a third of all private-sector workers in the 1950s to just 6 percent today. All of this resulting in a massive shift in power and wealth from workers to owners.
Those at the top justify their staggering wealth, and theyโre โworth,โ three ways:
The first is trickle-down economics. They claim that their wealth trickles down to everyone else as they invest it and create jobs. Just wait for itโฆ But as we know, wealth at the top has soared for decades and nothing has trickled down.
The second is the โfree market.โ They talk about market forces beyond their control. But remember, markets are created by rules. These rules donโt exist in nature; they are human creations. The political power of the wealthy has let them change the rules for their own benefit โ busting unions, monopolizing industries, and reaping big tax cuts.
The third is the idea that theyโre superior human beings. Sure, they may be talented but this doesnโt justify the staggering amount of wealth they are now taking home. Nor does it justify the amount of wealth they will pass down to heirs. The biggest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history will occur over the next 25 years as the richest 1.5% of Americans hand down roughly some $36 trillion dollars to their children and grandchildren. That doesnโt make those heirs superior. It makes them lucky.
The reality is thereโs no justification for todayโs extraordinary concentration of wealth at the very top. Or for how little people are paid at the bottom.
The โpaid what youโre worthโ myth has proven to be a cruelly effective way to put the blame on workers for not getting ahead โ while giving the rich and powerful cover to rig the game for their own benefit.
It is distorting our politics, rigging our markets, and granting unprecedented power to a handful of people while millions of Americans struggle to get by.
Donโt fall for it.
Sarah Thomas, a tutor to the super-rich, spills the tea on what it's like to tutor the children of the ultra-wealthy. She spent a lot of time on mega yachts and hotels, including an underwater suite in Dubai where sharks swim past the windows. โ Read the rest
Tressie McMillan Cottom, a professor with the Center for Information, Technology and Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been selected as the 2023 winner of the Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.
The Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize was created in 2007 by the late Professor Joseph B. Gittler to recognize outstanding and lasting scholarly contributions to racial, ethnic, and/or religious relations. The annual award includes a $25,000 prize and a medal.
โThrough her work as a leading academic, sociologist, and writer, Tressie McMillan Cottom brings critical perspective and analysis to some of the greatest social challenges we face today,โ said Brandeis University President Ron Liebowitz.
Before joining the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2020, Dr. McMillan Cottom was an associate professor in the department of sociology in the College of Humanities and Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. She is the author ofย Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economyย (The New Press, 2017), andย Thick: And Other Essays (The New Press, 2019).
Professor McMillan Cottom is a graduate of North Carolina Central University, where she majored in English and political science. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Emory University in Atlanta.