In the 1940s and early 1950s, there was a survey firm called the Psychological Corporation. In a survey from 1950, it asked "top movie stars earn from $200,000 to $500,000 a year. Do you feel this is too much, too little, or about right?" Then "how about baseball stars earning from $50,000 to $125,000 a year" and "how do you feel about top executives of large companies, earning from $100,000 to $200,000 a year." According to the CPI, a dollar in 1950 was worth about 10 times as much as today (10.6 times, to be exact). I don't know what top movie stars or executives typically made then, but according to the figures in Baseball Reference the very highest paid baseball players were indeed in the range that they gave (Joe DiMaggio made $100,000, Ted Williams $90,000, Stan Musial $50-65,000).
The results:
Too Much Too Little About Right DK
Movies 53% 0% 36% 11%
Baseball 41% 1% 49% 9%
Executives 44% 1% 45% 10%
There have been more recent questions about baseball players and executives, although they didn't specify how much they actually earned at the time. In 1985, 65% said baseball players were paid too much, which rose to 70% in 1995. In 1986, 60% said executives were, rising to 74% in 1992. Oddly, there don't seem to have been any questions after the 1990s.
[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]
No comments:
Post a Comment