Some of you may be saying. “Well that’s not fair. You’re not including the other things that companies do. Walmart donates food and toys and stuff.” Ok. Fine. My metrics don’t have all of the in-kind donations – but sadly, it turns out most companies don’t report that metric. You have to pay to find out how much companies donate and it is not required for companies to report publicly. A few do though. So let’s pick on Walmart again. It’s the biggest company in the US in revenue and has an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to its impact on US communities and the economy. In 2018, Walmart stated that it gave back $1.08B in “cash and in-kind” to charity. But even when you consider that number, Walmart only increases its giving to 0.21% of total revenue last year.

Next you might say, “Well big companies already give back to the community. They provide jobs and opportunities for employees.” You’re right. Big companies can do a lot of good. My old company’s willingness to educate their employees may be one of reasons why Seattle is one of the most educated cities in the country. Once you get in the door, you have access to so many opportunities and you can have a fulfilling and lucrative career. I can attest to that. For the 7+ years, between promotions and raises my income grew at just above 15% per year. I got to travel, go to conferences, trainings, and pursue a free graduate degree. So, to be fair, let’s only look at income rather than revenue, since income is what a company makes after it invests in its people…

Looking at income things get a little better, but not much. Walmart’s giving rate only increased to 0.25% of income. However, several of the companies on the list of biggest givers look a little better when you consider income. General Mills even got up to 8.6%. But for the majority, they still fell below 2%. These are the biggest givers in the S&P 500. So big companies do some good from this perspective, but could they do more?

Not everyone who works for a big company is taken care of. I sat with contract employees who were paid less than 25% of what full time employees earned doing the same work. I got to know an older woman who had been at the company for 35 years and found out she made just under half my salary. For many of my friends there, wage growth was stagnant. Half of people were forced into a performance grade that resulted in a wage increase below the 2.8% cost of living adjustment. Average performance raise pools were between 2-3% every year for most employees even when the company had record breaking profits. That meant that every year, my annual raise resulted in someone else on getting less than a cost of living adjustment. That never felt right or good. Even with my above average raises for me every year, my husband and I struggled for several years to pay our bills. His income grew at country’s average rate so when I quit my job, we were in the red every month before food. If I was struggling when my increases were above average, how were the people around me surviving let alone thriving? 

 Again, this is not limited to one big company. Wages for most have grown at pretty low rates over the last several years. While corporate profits grew 16.2% last year, salaries rose only 3.1% on average. So where’s all that money that companies are making going? Looking at salary alone, executives have the same stagnant wage growth and it seems like their income is only growing at 3% as well. But with executive compensation surging due to stocks and options, the Economic Policy Institute estimates that CEO compensation actually grew at 47.1% between 2016 and 2017. And the average CEO now has realized almost 312 times the amount of the typical worker. This growing trend that separates the compensation of the people at the top from the average worker started skyrocketing in the early 90’s when I was around 5 years old. For almost my entire life, the gap between the wealthy and poor has been growing at unprecedented rates. But millennials are ruining the economy. Right?



Trickle-down economics is based on the premise that if companies and wealthy patrons have more money it will grow the economy through increased spending. That giving breaks to companies will benefit the everyday man. But that isn’t happening. My old company’s CEO came out last year and said that due to the $1 billion 2018 tax break, the company would be increasing its charitable giving. In fact, it would set aside $300 million in additional funds towards employee training and the community with $100M going to charity through increases in the employee matching fund. I remember the sting last year when we found out a massive tax break would only directly benefit people in the community if we, the people, gave more. Again, this was part of a larger trend. Most Fortune 500 companies didn’t commit to doing anything with the extra tax dollars last year. In fact, less than 5% of companies dedicated money toward wage increases after getting a massive tax deduction. Instead, in the same year, companies spent 154 times more on stock buybacks than the amount they spent on all workers’ bonuses and wages. Since the richest 10% of the country owns 84% of stock, the people benefiting from this are the same people who already have more.

So the question remains: How much should we expect companies and the people at the top to give back? After I dug into the numbers, I see the biggest companies in the US giving back to our communities in ways that seem hollow and not up to the standards this country was built on. And I challenge you to ask a deeper question: What will it take to convince companies and the people at the top to start acting like they’re part of the communities that live, breathe, and work inside their walls?