A new report from the National Employment Law Project [PDF] found that more than one in four private-sector jobs pays less than $10 an hour—and those jobs are mostly with large corporations, not small businesses. Of the 50 largest employers of low-wage workers, 92 percent of those were profitable last year —and three-fourths of them are doing better than they were before the recession.
Meanwhile, the executives at those companies are pocketing the money that isn’t going to their workers. The NELP study found that top executive compensation at those firms averaged over $9 million last year. Assuming they work a 40-hour week, that’s $4,326 an hour, about what 600 employees make at today’s minimum wage.
So who are these companies stiffing their workers while making record profits? Some of them are familiar names that you probably pass (and maybe even shop at) every day. Below we take a look at eight companies raking in profits while paying their workers poverty wages.
