A headline on blog.aflcio.org says “CEOs Get One-Third of All Pay.” Not surprisingly, it’s flat-out false. The group of Americans “getting” all this money isn’t CEOs. It’s everyone earning more than the Social Security wage base, currently $106,800, according to the AFL-CIO blog’s second-hand source, a Wall Street Journal article. (Google’s cache has the full article, which the WSJ site won’t show you unless you register.)

Credit to the WSJ for drawing attention to data that could support an argument for payroll taxes on higher wages. (I don’t know what the WSJ’s editorial stance on taxes is; I just know they tend to be on the other side of most issues from me, but they usually do their homework more thoroughly than most media outlets.)

The data suggest that the payroll tax ceiling hasn’t kept up with the growth in executive pay. As executive pay has increased, the percentage of wages subject to payroll taxes has shrunk, to 83% from 90% in 1982. Compensation that isn’t subject to the portion of payroll tax that funds old-age benefits now represents foregone revenue of $115 billion a year.

I don’t know why the WSJ decided that if you’re earning a lot of money, you must be an executive. Maybe it has to do with who they perceive as their readership. (Personally, I’m not this “highly paid” nor am I an executive, but that’s not relevant to the argument.)

I no idea what fraction of All Pay this country’s CEOs earn, but now I know it’s less than a third.

[Thanks, Lucinda, for sharing this article.]