Dive Brief:

• A rule adopted last month by the Securities and Exchange Commission to report the gap between their CEO’s compensation and the median pay of their workers will start showing up in proxy filings in 2018.

• The reports could embarrass some retail companies with well compensated executives that also offer notoriously low-paying jobs in stores and warehouses.

• TJX Cos. CEO Carol Meyrowitz's compensation, for example, including salary, cash bonus, equity and a change in the value of her pension, was some  $28.7 million for the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, Bloomberg notes, while the median wage for department stores workers in the U.S. was about $20,500.

Dive Insight:

The pay ratio rule from the SEC is a detail of the Dodd-Frank Act that aims to prevent some of the conditions that led to the Great Recession. Many advocates of the measure believe it could help bring to light areas of the economy that are causing the wage gap, which many economists cite as a major factor for the economy’s troubled recovery and continued weak spots.

Critics don’t like the impending rule because they see it as a public shaming of chief executives that does little to bring actual relief to the middle class or lower-income workers.

And while Bloomberg cited Meyrowitz and others known for their hefty compensation packages, those retailers are hardly alone in having this level of pay compensation discrepancies. Wal-Mart Stores has moved to tamp down their executive pay packages, saying they would be tied more closely to the company’s goals. And the retailer is spending $1 billion to increase the pay of its hourly workers — pay that, it should be noted, in most cases is still not a living wage. 

In any case, the mood of the country — including many voters, city councils, mayors, members of Congress, and President Barack Obama — is to change policy that would bring workers compensation more in line with their rising productivity. That has meant that retailers and jurisdictions have begun raising hourly minimums and improving working conditions and scheduling.

With working conditions and wages being cast ever the more into the public consciousness, that could mean that retailers with huge pay gaps between executives and workers could suffer in the eyes of their customers.