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EARNINGS….Via Ezra, Rick Hertzberg asks a question:
Why is that a manual worker gets paid wages and a middle manager or cop or teacher earns a salary, but a corporate boss condescends to accept “compensation”?
This really isn’t so hard. “Wages” refers to hourly earnings. “Salary” is typically a fixed yearly amount for exempt employees. “Compensation” is used for corporate honchos because you need a word that encompasses the fact that a big part of their earnings are in stock, deferred salary, capital gains, pension payments, and various perks. There’s really nothing very sinister about all this.
