Something has to change.
Going through the 2010-2011 ASU salary data has so far shown female professors are paid significantly less than men (which seems to me to be a lawsuit waiting to happen), and tenure track professors are paid disproportionately high wages for often doing significantly less work than lecturers and instructors do.
And now class equity.
Michael Crow has a base salary of $487,827. That’s 23 times the pay of our overworked, underpaid and underappreciated custodians. What is more, according to the Social Security Administration, the top 1 percent of wage earners in the U.S. have salaries starting at $200,000. That puts Crow in the top .23 percent of workers. Our full-time custodians, meanwhile, are in the bottom 40 percent.
The combined salary of just 36 of ASU administrators is more than $9 million, for an average salary of $255,043 – again, the top 1 percent of wage earners. Elizabeth Capaldi, the provost, makes $385,000. Morgan Olsen, the chief financial officer, makes $351,000. The dean of the W.P. Carey School of Business, meanwhile, makes $456,000.
That $9 million is serious — this is tuition money, after all, coming from student loans. Had we not paid that amount, student in-state tuition for the same period would have been 7 percent lower. Had that money been invested in a trust for students that tracks the S&P 500, students would have more than $12 million to use for tuition breaks and scholarships.
The highest paid 150 employees at ASU — not including head coaches of ASU athletics — have a combined salary of $33,636,738. That’s as much as the bottom 1,300 full-time employees combined. That means there’s a good chance money freed up from a layoff or by not renewing a contract is going to pay somebody else’s salary.
This is as clear of a class division as class divisions get, and the gap between rich and poor at ASU is cruel and unjust.
If Crow gives up his salary for just one year, every titled administrative secretary could get a 40 percent raise. If the 36 administrators gave up their salaries for just one year, every custodian could double his or her salary.
People who think they’ll someday be rich almost always make arguments against pay equity. I get angry emails from students calling me a Communist sympathizer, as though having sympathy for the downtrodden and disposed and wanting everybody to have security to live is a bad thing.
The reality is this: Roughly 90,000 people in the U.S. make over $1 million per year. That’s less than .5 percent of workers. Of ASU’s 70,000 students, statistically only 1 percent will make over $200,000, whereas 49,000 will make under $45,000 per year. No ASU graduate will make over $2 million. The top 150 employees at ASU make more than the bottom 1,300. Those who think they’ll be in the top 150 should think again.
The 36 administrators make up the top .5 percent of ASU. It’s no coincidence that, as tuition goes up and staff gets fired, they get rich. It’s time to put aside fantasies and start paying attention to class.
Reach the columnist atwhamilt@asu.edu
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