N.C. PENSION GRAB UNCONSTITUTIONAL

A Superior Court judge ruled in September that North Carolina officials, including Gov. Mike Easley, violated the state constitution when they used $225 million in state pension fund monies to help cover a budget shortfall, the Associated Press reported.

The constitution says retirement system funds “shall not be applied, diverted, loaned to, or used by the state.”

PAY GAP CONTINUES TO GROW, SURVEY SAYS

The Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy have released their annual CEO Compensation Survey.

According to the survey: If worker pay had grown at the same rate as chief executive officer pay, the average worker would have made $108,138 in 2005. And if the federal minimum hourly wage had grown at the same rate as CEO pay, it would have been $22.61.

Because of the “most privatized war in history” and “oil barons profiting from pain at the pumps,” this year’s survey highlighted compensation for CEOs in the defense and oil industries.

Average compensation for the top defense contractors has doubled to $7.7 million since 2002, and CEOs of the nation’s largest oil companies took home an average $32.7 million in 2005.

The 55-page survey is available at www.ips-dc.org.

ECONOMIC WELL-BEING CONTINUES TO SLIDE

The economic well-being of today’s middle- and low-income working families is far from healthy, according to the Economic Policy Institute’s “The State of Working America 2006-2007.”

Family income, retirement security and healthcare are among the topics researched in the report, which found that workers receiving healthcare and pension coverage through their employers are paying more for less.

The report also found that more than one-quarter of all households headed by 47- to 64-year-olds were not expected to reach the minimum income considered adequate for retirement.

“Wealth is synonymous with security,” according to EPI. “The ability to accumulate assets—whether to pay for education, buy a home, finance retirement or to provide a shock absorber for life’s inevitable bumpy roads—is fundamental to safeguarding and improving living standards over the years. But in America today, wealth and its benefits are becoming increasingly concentrated among the wealthiest few and further out of reach for everyone else.”

For more information, visit www.epinet.org.