Why do CEOs get paid so much?

In 1965, the ratio of CEO-to-average-worker compensation was 21:1. In 2020, that number had skyrocketed to 351:1. One listener wondered: “How has that gap grown so wide?” We answer that, plus why gas prices list the tenth of a cent and if unlimited vacation is all it’s cracked up to be on this Whaddya Wanna Know Wednesday. Here’s everything we talked about on the show today: CEO pay has skyrocketed 1,322% since 1978: CEOs were paid 351 times as much as a typical worker in 2020 from the Economic Policy Institute In 2020, top CEOs earned 351 times more than the typical worker from CNBC CEO pay jumped 16% last year, while workers saw just a 1.8% gain from Fortune Alphabet grants tens of millions of dollars in stock awards to top execs from MSN Why do gas prices end in 9/10 of a cent? from Marketplace Why unlimited vacation isn’t all it seems from Marketplace Companies with unlimited PTO are forcing their employees to take it from Protocol Will the pandemic make the U.S. more of a vacation nation? from Marketplace