The December 4 assassination of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, sent shockwaves across the country. Media and public discourse have been rife with speculation about the motives for and implications of this horrific event. Both the death and subsequent reactions have laid bare deep-seated and widespread pain in American society.
The murder is an unimaginable personal tragedy for Mr. Thompson’s widow and children. Their pain is no doubt exacerbated by the public exposure and scrutiny that has followed his death. It is also true that for millions of people who observe this event as a news story, Mr. Thompson’s murder exposed their own pain, frustration and disgust with American capitalism in general and the healthcare industry in particular. Private insurance is only the tip of the iceberg but it offers a clear window into structural inequalities and barriers to good health, dignity and economic opportunity for too many Americans.
If you were shocked by the social media outcry, you’ve probably underestimated the costs of our economic system for those working to make ends meet. From 1978 to 2023, compensation for CEOs of America’s largest firms increased by 1,085 percent. The typical worker’s compensation? Up by a mere 24 percent. We spend 1 out of every 6 dollars in the U.S. on health care, and this poignant article notes that in the five years prior to 2022, “more than half of U.S. adults report they’ve gone into debt because of medical or dental bills.” Underlying these data are countless personal stories of family hardship and loss. This in no way justifies the killing of the chief executive of a specific insurance company but may go a long way to explaining the public reaction on social media.
What does this mean for American business?
Over the past 15 years, we’ve witnessed meaningful strides in corporate commitments to employee welfare, human rights and environmental goals. While there is a long way to go – and market pressures on corporations to pull back are relentless – social and environmental responsibility sit firmly on corporate agendas and American companies have made real and meaningful progress on important challenges, especially on decarbonization, conservation of resources and human rights in the supply chain.
And yet for most firms, economic opportunity hasn’t been a meaningful part of this agenda. As a cornerstone of the American Dream—and key to the buying power of customers—we might expect economic inequality and financial security to factor into executive and board decisions. It leaves one to wonder: Will recent events motivate executives to connect the growing rates of economic inequality, their own long-term success, and the many levers they have to address the problem?
This tension is on my mind as I sit among two dozen corporate leaders from high-profile companies like McDonald’s, Gap Inc., Meta and LinkedIn, committed to addressing economic inequality through the everyday operations of their business. We’re gathered this week in Atlanta as part of the Aspen Institute Economic Mobility Fellowship, a program designed to support mid-career leaders as they launch and scale innovative projects that reduce the wealth and income gaps in the US—without sacrificing their companies’ bottom lines. We believe there is a path forward in which American corporations continue to thrive, without depending on business models that extract value from our country’s most vulnerable communities or prevent workers from climbing the economic ladder.
Later this week, we’ll turn our attention from Fellows’ own companies to our collective ambitions for the corporate sector as a whole. In anticipation of a new program we’re launching in 2025, we want to wrestle with a central and challenging question: How might we move the topic of economic mobility onto the corporate agenda?
Clearly, we have our work cut out for us. The path ahead is not an easy one and I can’t say for certain that we’ll succeed. Nor can I tell whether this appalling murder will open new dimensions of the conversation or simply fade into memory.
But the stakes are too high to ignore this moment. If we fail to reverse the widening economic gap in this country, the one thing we can be sure of is that the pain of our neighbors and co-workers will only grow. But if we succeed, both business and society will be the better for it.
This blog post was originally published on LinkedIn. Follow Eli Malinsky for more insights on business and society.