[SUPER RICH] Wage gap between CEOs, employees in America and Korea

The wage gap between company chief executives and employees is becoming a hot-button topic, with the huge disparity continuing to widen.

The salary structures in the United States and Korea show different reward systems for CEOs.

At the same time, there has been a heated debate in the U.S. in recent years whether the astronomical remuneration paid to CEOs is appropriate.

A CNN article published in August reported that Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon received $19.4 million in rewards last year, while the lowest-paid workers at the retail giant earned $9 an hour.

“Something is terribly wrong here,” the article read, pointing out that McMillon makes over 800 times more than his employees even after Wal-Mart’s minimum wage increase this year.

The United States has a performance-based system where people are paid salaries based on their achievements, but this has become controversial, as the wage gap is widening immensely.

According to an Economic Policy Institute report last year, 50 years ago, an average American CEO received about 20 times more than the employees, but in 2013 it rose to 300 times more on average. The trend has become stronger since the global financial crisis of 2008, after CEOs asked for more benefits for pulling companies through the economic crisis.

Media reports confirmed that the American wage gap is highly imbalanced.

According to USA Today, Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav received $156 million as remuneration last year, 2,282 times more than his employees -- earning average wage of $68,397 -- while Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. CEO Steve Ells also received 1,524 times more than his employees. Starbucks chairman and CEO Howard Schultz got 994 times more.