That is only possible because of outsourcing. If you only employ the highest paid earners and use contractors for all support staff, you artificially inflate your median salary. I'd bet that FB has much lower salaries if you count anyone working full time for Facebook.
I've been thinking a lot about the merits of the <i>(highest income / median income)</i> ratio in creating a society that is a little more resistant to eventual inequality. Rather than setting absolute tax brackets, what if we define tax brackets by this ratio? That way, it will be in the interest of the highest income earners to raise the median income.
Not so much in H1B data: <a href="http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/Facebook/189973_Salary.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/Facebook/189973_Salar...</a><p>At least for the base salary I guess.
> <i>Gap said its median-paid employee, a real person, was a part-time sales associate in Alabama who worked a partial year and whose pay was not annualized.</i><p>It seems odd to compare the non-annualised salary of a part-time worker to those of full-time/annualised. Is this a strategy by Gap to deflect attention (I know $5375 is extremely low, but I have no ration/scale/factor to compare it by, so I don't know exactly <i>how</i> low. This employee in Alabama could be working a day a month), or is this format of reporting actually required by Dodd-Frank?
I've definitely felt the challenge of hiring in a startup as a result of these kinds of numbers. I'm curious what others think will come of this seeming bubble in compensation.