Gross

I just caught the tail end of a Wal*Mart discussion in the Letters to the Editor pages of the Bee. Apparently a reader wrote in and was defending Wal*Mart for some reason or another. (Wal*Mart always needs to be defended) And in this letter, a comment was made that Union meat cutters “are grossly overcompensated” because they make $21 an hour. From that statement we can learn that the writer does not make anywhere close to $21 an hour. There’s nothing wrong with that…what is wrong is to make assumptions about what gross overcompensation is.

I also read the Sunday paper Parade supplement and it included a section on the wages of Americans…“What People Earn: Our Annual Report on the Economy and You.” And from that list, here’s my contribution to what constitutes “gross overcompensation”. Howard Stern makes $31 million. Kobe Bryant makes $15.9 million. Terry Semel (CEO-Yahoo!) makes $120 million. It goes on and on, of course.

And on the flip side, how about “gross undercompensation”? Jimmy Moronta, Sgt, Marine Corps, $22,000 a year.

For many years I was a Union carpenter and made union contract wages. With that money I was able to live the middle class life. We bought a home and raised 3 children. We were never rich. We lived in neighborhoods with insurance agents, assistant department store managers, salesmen, engineers, etc. Was I “grossly overcompensated” and living beyond our “class”?