July 16, 2014
We all know how hard it is to get by on a $5 million a year salary in New York City. Therefore readers should not feel bad about subsidizing the $5.6 million paycheck for Herbert Pardes, the former CEO of New York-Presbyterian Hospital and now the executive vice-chairman of its board of trustees.
The NYT had an interesting piece on Dr. Pardes salary as well as the pay of other top executives at large hospitals. However the piece erred in presenting the issue of these large paychecks as a question of social justice versus market outcomes. As a top executive of a tax exempt institution, Dr. Pardes is being subsidized by taxpayers. If we assume that most of the money that he is soliciting for the hospital is coming from people in the top tax bracket, then taxpayers are paying roughly 40 percent of the money that Dr. Pardes is able to collect. If taxpayers were not providing this subsidy it is likely that he would be raising considerably less money for the hospital, which would make his market value considerably lower.
There is an argument that the public may want to subsidize the provision of health care by New York-Presbyterian Hospital. It is not clear what the argument would be that school teachers and firefighters should be subsidizing the paycheck of a hospital executive earning more than $5 million (16,800 months worth of food stamp benefits) a year.
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