One Issue That Unites a Divided AmericaCurbing Excessive CEO Pay | Opinion [Video]

At a time of intense political divisions, Americans across the political spectrum share enormous common ground on at least one problem—the extreme divide between CEO and worker pay.

A recent Bentley University-Gallup survey of likely voters found that 96 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents, and 67 percent of Republicans agreed that businesses should narrow their CEO-worker pay gaps.

That tracks with what I’ve been hearing. Over the past two years, I’ve traveled to small towns in three swing states for a series of nonpartisan dialogues about the economy. My role was to lead discussions with residents on CEO pay, an issue I’ve been analyzing for 30 years.

On my first trip to Whiteville, N.C., in a county where Donald Trump won 64 percent of the vote in 2020, I came prepared to rebut the most common arguments in defense of sky-high CEO pay. Over the years, I’ve heard them all.

“If these companies don’t fork over 10-figure paychecks, they …