Companies were quite profitable when the ratio of typical worker salaries to those of the CEO were 10-1 or 20-1. In the 1980s, it was 58-1.

Now? The ratio is over 1000-1 or more in many instances. And in some cases, it’s for companies that the CEO has essentially run into the ground (like JC Penny).

[edited to add] Note that the 1980s was in the middle of the Reagan years, when tax rates were still higher than they are now. The top tax rate was 50% until the tax act of 1986, which reduced the top rate to 38.5% beginning in 1987 and then down to 28% in 1988.