I was out filling up my vehicle to the tune of $4.28 a gallon and it got me thinking about how this company has been exploiting us all in every way.
If you follow the government's inflation numbers(CPI), prices are up 8.3 percent since January 2024. So unless your salary grew by 8.3 percent you effectively got a pay cut.
Over that same stretch, from the bank's own SEC filings: the CEO's base salary went from $1,000,000 to $1,200,000, with a cash incentive target of 275 percent of base and another $1,500,000 in stock. The outgoing CEO stepped down to Executive Chairman at a $1,400,000 base — more than the sitting CEO makes.
For us low caste employees, hypothetically on a $95,000 salary that's $7,900 a year you should be making and aren't. For merit increases, a token 2 percent leaves you 6.3 points short, about $6,000. The 3 percent that felt like a win is still 5.3 points short, $5,000 gone. Even a 5 percent year, which almost none of us saw, lands 3.3 points short.
Then there's the time they stole from us. RTO three days a week at 45 minutes each way is 216 hours a year. That is 5.4 work-weeks we work for free. Our year is 2,296 hours now, not 2,080. It never shows up on a pay stub. That's exactly why they can take it.
Then there's the driving. Thirty miles each way, three days a week, is 9,500 miles a year. Gas is up 24.6 percent in twelve months. The IRS raised its own mileage rate mid-year to 76 cents a mile because running a car got that much more expensive. That's $7,200 a year, and we pay it with after-tax dollars, so we have to earn about $11,000 to cover it.
Stack all three and our real hourly rate is down between 18 and 25 percent. Someone at $95,000 was making $45.67 an hour. They make about $35 now.
I know there are some braindead boomers and beta-male bootlickers in here who will say to su-k it up, but when I run the numbers I don't see how I can do that. I assume any of you in here saying that just really enjoy getting bent over. Any reasonable person would be angry.