- They have great power to influence social development and when those who have a lot of power in society have very different financial conditions compared to everyone else, it risks affecting their decisions, says Anna Almqvist, who is LO economist.
Anna Almqvist is behind the LO report "The Power Elite - in a Own Bubble" which will be presented today on Wednesday. The LO report examines how income development looks for those who hold different positions of power in Swedish society, compared to the development for a regular industrial worker's salary. In a longer perspective, the income gap has widened since 1980 and the steepest development concerns the economic elite. In 1980, a top manager in business earned an average of nine industrial workers' wages. 2018 was at the top of 61.
The trend with the widening gap between the economic elite and ordinary wage earners has been constant over the years, with the exception of years of severe recession and steep falls on the stock exchange. In addition, the gap has continued to widen regardless of the political majority in the Riksdag, ie even in recent years when the Social Democrats have been in power.
Magnus Henrekson is CEO of the Institute for Business Research. He does not think that the widened income gap is such a big problem as LO claims:
- Those who earn the most, if the CEO does a good job, are the shareholders. So you can see it as the CEO making important operational decisions that create these values, and get to know them. In addition, the CEO pays about two-thirds of his remuneration in tax, says Magnus Henrekson.