Press TV – May 28, 2014
The median pay package for a chief executive officer (CEO) in the United States rose above $10 million for the first time in 201, according to a new Associated Press/Equilar pay study, while worker pay stagnates.
A typical American CEO at an S&P 500 company earned a record $10.5 million in 2013, an increase of 8.8 percent from $9.6 million in 2012, the study showed.
Chief executives, generally the most senior position in a large public company, now make 257 times the average worker’s salary, up sharply from 181 times in 2009.
Last year was the fourth straight that CEO compensation rose following a decline during the Great Recession. The median CEO pay package has climbed more than 50 percent since the recession.
“We are still dealing with a situation where CEO compensation has spun out of control and CEOs are being paid extraordinary levels for their work,” says Gary Hewitt, director of research at GMI Ratings, a corporate governance research firm.
The highest paid CEO was Anthony Petrello of oilfield-services company Nabors Industries, who made $68.3 million in 2013. The second-highest paid CEO among companies in the S&P 500 was Leslie Moonves of CBS. Moonves’ total compensation rose 9 percent to $65.6 million in 2013.
Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold CEO Richard Adkerson received a total payment of $55.3 million, making him the third-highest paid CEO last year.
CEO pay remains a divisive issue in the US. The 8.8 percent increase in total pay that CEOs got last year dwarfed the average raise a US worker received.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said average weekly wages for US workers rose 1.3 percent in 2013. At that rate an employee would have to work 257 years to make what a typical S&P 500 CEO makes in a year.
According to a study released earlier this month by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the growing income inequality in the United States has reached a 50-year high.