You will recall that the Dodd Frank Act in 2010 charged the SEC with propounding a regulation requiring disclosure of the relative pay of reporting company CEOs to the median worker in his or her company.  This was part of the effort to shame CEOs into controlling their pay, and reflected Congressional concern about the growing wealth gap in the United States.  Observers were skeptical as to the efficacy of the requirement as a matter of policy, and most were quite sure that the value of disclosure to the investment community was nil.

So the SEC is years behind its timetable to promulgate this regulation and is still messing with it.  Just this week Senator Warren sent an open letter to SEC chair White, excoriating White for lax enforcement and citing among other things the SEC failure to complete this task.

Today the SEC, still trying to figure out what metrics make sense, posted a proposal for comment on the SEC Website; a portion of the SEC announcement is reprinted below:

“The analysis is posted on the SEC’s website as part of the comment file for rules proposed by the Commission in September 2013 that would require the disclosure of the median of the annual total compensation of all employees of the issuer; the annual total compensation of the chief executive officer of the issuer; and the ratio of the median of the annual total compensation of all employees of the issuer to the annual total compensation of the chief executive officer of the issuer. ”

The hearty among you may join the battle by repairing to the SEC site and engaging the merits….  The more cynical might come to the view that since the rule will have no effect and no value, the SEC should just adopt something/anything that doesn’t cost companies too much money for compliance, and then move on to useful tasks.