Caymen,
Every company includes their CEO in the Average Pay, Thats only one persons pay out of probably a few hundred thousand employees world wide. That does not raise average wage that much.
The minimum wage applies to people who have no skills or minimal education. If someone goes to work for Wal-Mart who has some skills or experience like a cashier, payroll clerk, etc, they will get paid more than the minimum wage.
Many years ago, my daughter worked for Wal-Mart. She started out ar a new store before it opened and was controling the inventory coming into the store. Later she moved to the office where she loaded price changes into the UPC code computer and also handled the payroll/timecards, etc. She had previously worked at K-Mart in similar positions so she did start at a higher jpay than the minimum wage.
I don't know what the salary of Wal-Mart's CEO, I do agree that many CEO's are way overpaid, especially if they are publicly traded companies. That's why I like the Japanese law that limits CEO salary to 10X the salary of the lowest paid worker in the company.
In the US, I think we should limit CEO's to 12X or 15X the salary of the lowest paid employee as long as the employee is making at least the minimum wage. The CEO salary limit should be based on total compensation including Bonuses, and Stock options, etc, unless all workers also receive a proportional share in the Bonuses, Profit Sharing, and stock options.
...Rich