What is the purpose of the $1 salary, such as Steve Jobs, Google Execs, or any CEO?
It’s largely a symbolic gesture meant to indicate an exec’s willingness to sacrifice for the long-term success of the company. Note that a lot of execs get most of their compensation in non-salary form (bonuses, loans, stock grants, noncash benefits, and deferred salary) so they still might be making quite a bit of money. I wouldn’t be surprised if your boss were in this category. (For tax purposes, they are still supposed to get taxed on the whole bundle, even if it’s not salary. The only sort-of-exception to this is deferred salary, which just means “pay me a few years later so I can shift around my income and pay taxes when I get it”.) At any rate, a lot of execs are sufficiently well-off to take a one-time wage reduction and still be able to afford cheese on their Whoppers, if you know what I mean.
