COMP NEWS – As Hollywood continues to grapple with a join talent strike from actors and writers, eight-figure executive pay is coming under increased scrutiny.

As Hollywood actors and writers strike together for the first time in more than half a century, executive pay is in the spotlight. Talent are posting residuals checks barely worth the postage it cost to mail them alongside captions criticizing Hollywood execs’ eight-figure pay packages.

SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America didn’t strike because of C-suite pay, of course, but the optics of such disparity are fueling the flames.

“What’s happening right now in Hollywood is a microcosm for what’s happening across America,” says Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor and co-founder of the Economic Policy Institute. CEOs of major corporations often earn hundreds of times the salary of the typical worker, he notes, and some entertainment companies have ratios even more jarring.

The last time writers and actors went on strike was in 1960 when the pay ratio between executives and talent was about 1-to-20. In the last 45 years CEO pay has increased 1,460 percent while talent has lagged behind. Roughly 86% of unionized actors within SAG-AFTRA make less than $26,000 a year.

“Is this fair? Fairness is in the eyes of the beholder, obviously, but it certainly doesn’t feel it and it does rub a lot of people the wrong way,” says Reich. “It seems like the game is rigged against average working people and in favor of people at the top. You have a lot of anger, a lot of frustration, and you ultimately have work stoppages and strikes.”

When the writers and actors struck in 1960, top executives made a mere fraction of what they do today and only about 20 times the pay of the typical worker. According to a 2022 study from EPI, CEO pay increased 1,460 percent from 1978 to 2021.

In those intervening years, Reich notes, there was an increase in executive pay coming in the form of stocks and stock options. That created an incentive for CEOs to increase the price of shares through things like stock buybacks, which not only made the executives money but also made them seem more valuable to the business.

In 2022, total compensation for the highest-paid Hollywood execs was more than $240 million — and nearly $314 million if you add in NBCUniversal parent Comcast. The median compensation among those featured on THR’s CEO scorecard in June was $32 million. (Note: The figures in this paragraph do not include Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel, as the agencies are neutral parties to the strike.)

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