AP tally: CEO pay floodgate still open
By Ellen Simon, AP Business Writer June 11, 2007
NEW YORK --A new Associated Press calculation shows that compensation for America's top CEOs has skyrocketed into the stratospheric heights of pro athletes and movie stars: Half make more than $8.3 million a year, and some make much, much more.
CEOs of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 that filed proxy information in the first half of this year received a combined $4.16 billion in 2006, according to AP's formula.
A recent report by the Congressional Research Service helps to put the executive pay issue into a real-world context. CEOs make, on average, 179 times as much as rank and file workers, double the 90-to-1 ratio in 1994, according to the agency's calculations.
CEOs are also much richer than lower-level executives at their own companies. The Hay Group, a compensation consulting company, estimates that the average CEO makes 2.5 times more than the average executive in base pay.
If the minimum wage had risen at the same pace as CEO pay since 1990, it would be worth $22.61 today, according to the Institute for Policy Studies. Instead, the federal minimum wage will increase to $5.85 an hour on July 24, the first increase in a decade.
Yachts, planes, beer — who needs actual pay?
Boards pile on the perks for CEOs even as their salaries are on the rise
AP - Updated: 9:25 a.m. MT June 9, 2007
Even as CEO pay has increased, their perquisites, from personal flights on the corporate jet or yacht, to cars and drivers, to country-club fees and home alarm systems, have persisted.
...the median 2006 total pay for the CEOs at 386 Standard & Poor’s 500 companies analyzed by The Associated Press was $8.3 million.
In 2006, the group’s total amount of “other compensation” was $169.2 million. Besides all the cushy perks — which are considered taxable income by the government — many companies picked up the tab for those costs, too.
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