September 17, 2025                                                         Home   Subscribe  Open in Browser

In his just-published first interview since becoming the world’s most visible religious leader, Pope Leo XIV responded to a question about the polarization now tearing societies apart all around the world. What’s driving that polarization? The “continuously wider gap between the income levels of the working class and the money that the wealthiest receive,” he explained, has been a major factor. 

Pope Leo would go on to share stats on the growing divide between CEO and worker pay that closely align with the stats we highlight in our latest annual Executive Excess report. We can’t be sure, of course, how Pope Leo happened upon those stats. But we like to imagine him sitting at his Vatican Palace desk scrolling through some of the extensive media coverage our report garnered.  

Pope Leo appears to be particularly baffled — and appalled — by the huge new Tesla pay package that may well turn Elon Musk into the world’s first trillionaire. 

“What does that mean and what’s that about?” the Pope asked. “If that is the only thing that has value anymore, then we’re in big trouble.”

We are indeed in big trouble. But we can fight back with real solutions to our growing economic divides. More below on a promising new approach that uses tax policy to take on and curb CEO greed.

Sarah Anderson
for the Institute for Policy Studies’ Inequality.org team

A Fast-Food Worker Takes on Racist Gerrymandering and Corporate Greed

This week’s frontline face: Fran Marion, a fast-food worker and leader with the Missouri Workers Center and Stand Up KC in Kansas City. 

What she's doing to help create a more equal world: Marion helped lead a successful 2024 ballot initiative to secure guaranteed paid leave in Missouri. She brought a powerful personal perspective to the campaign, having lost her own job and home after an illness had her missing work at a Taco Bell. 

Now Marion is fighting on the frontlines of a struggle against Missouri politicians bent on using political gerrymandering to undercut the power of the people to elect leaders and pass ballot measures that represent their interests. 

Why the fight matters: “This redistricting scheme is clearly part of a two-pronged plan to suppress voter participation and double down on attacking the rights of working people,” Marion writes in a new Inequality.org exclusive. “But working people like me don’t back down when our lives are on the line. We stay committed to the fight for our rights, from the streets, to the strike line, to the statehouse.”

Bernie Sanders, Rashida Tlaib, and the Pope Walked Into a Bar…

…and agreed that CEO pay has gone way out of control. OK, we do need to work on that punchline. But it’s worth noting that Sanders and Tlaib were introducing new legislation to crack down on rising inequality just as the new global leader of the Catholic Church was denouncing today’s extreme CEO-worker pay divide. 

No coincidence here. Americans of diverse backgrounds, faiths, and political perspectives all share common ground when it comes to overpaid CEOs. One poll last year found that 80 percent of likely voters support raising taxes on firms that pay CEOs over 50 times what they pay their typical employees, and that overall figure included 71 percent of Republicans. 

The Sanders-Tlaib bill would do just what voters want to see: impose heftier IRS bills on corporations that overpay their top execs at worker expense. That tax hike would create an incentive to both rein in executive pay and raise worker wages, all the while generating significant new capital for vital public investments. Learn more from our veteran CEO pay analyst Sarah Anderson at the link below.

Just-released data show that the gender gap stands at its widest level since 2016. In 2024, women working full-time year-round made 80.9 cents per dollar earned by men, a significant worsening of the gender earnings ratio compared to 82.7 cents per dollar in 2023. For an interactive version of this chart and more on gender inequality, click the link to our Inequality.org Facts section below.

A Really Big-Time Merger, a Shell-Shocked Corporate President

This week’s dour deep pocket: Jeff Shell, the president of Paramount, the media empire whose crown jewels now include outlets ranging from MTV and Nickelodeon to Showtime and CBS News.

What has Shell sour: the barrage of criticism that came his way last week after Shell named a long-time Trump fanboy, Kenneth Weinstein, the new ombudsman over CBS News. Weinstein, the New York Times notes, “has no experience overseeing news coverage.”

How did Weinstein, a former president of the right-wing Hudson Institute, end up responsible for keeping CBS News on the straight and narrow? Earlier this summer, Paramount needed a Trump sign-off on a $8-billion merger deal with Skydance Media, an outfit that Larry Ellison, the world’s second-richest billionaire, has been bankrolling.

The price for Trump’s sign-off? That would end up including a Paramount commitment to creating an ombudsman for CBS News. Paramount earlier this summer also agreed to settle — for $16 million — an “election interference” lawsuit Trump had brought against CBS News, a lawsuit independent observers considered legally without any merit. 

As Paramount president, meanwhile, Shell himself will pocket $5 million this year in base pay and bonus.

The last word: CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert in July dubbed Paramount’s Trump settlement a “big fat bribe.” Shell’s Paramount has since then announced the upcoming cancellation of Colbert’s show.

Our research, editorial, and publishing team depends on hundreds of paid subscribers who make monthly gifts. Some give $3 each month. Others give $200! All told, this support enables our team to stay focused on identifying causes and solutions to our deep economic inequality. Paid subscribers have contributed more than $20,000 in the past year. {{if --[[Inequality Sustainer, 60 day gifts]] SavedSearch_523974}}That makes a big difference. Thank you for being a paid subscriber. You can head to our self-service page at any time to see giving history and make changes to your subscription.{{else}}Ready to become a paid subscriber? Sign up today.{{end}}