WALSH: Ilhan Omar Is ‘Morally Outraged’ That Walmart’s CEO Makes A Lot More Than Cashiers. Here’s Why Her Outrage Is Absurd.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who knows a thing or two about moral outrages because she has committed several herself, recently proclaimed moral outrage about the fact that Walmart’s CEO earns a considerably larger income than those of Walmart cashiers. She was reacting to a CNBC report on so-called “income inequality” that alleges it would take the average employee at a corporation 100 years to make what his CEO makes annually. To drive this point home, Omar selected the example of Walmart, claiming that the median pay for a Walmart worker is about $22,000, while Walmart’s CEO Doug McMillon takes home almost $23,000,000. There are a lot of problems here, so let’s go through this piece by piece.

First of all, it would only take an employee 100 years to earn his CEO’s salary if the employee remained in the same position, earning the same pay, for a century. I will try to be delicate when I say this, but if you haven’t gotten a raise in 100 years, it’s probably because you really suck at your job. Though I am impressed that you’re still working at such an advanced age. My point here is not merely sarcastic. This is important to stipulate: A person making 20 grand a year doesn’t have to remain at that level forever. And if he has any skill and ambition to speak of, he probably won’t. Which brings us to Omar’s point about Doug McMillon.