How much do CEOs make? Last year, the answer ranged from $0 to nearly $300 million, according to The Wall Street Journal’s annual ranking of S&P 500 companies. The median CEO’s compensation package in 2021 was $14.7 million. Most of that amount comes in the form of equity awards that could ultimately prove to be…
Some market watchers argue that the rise in median executive payouts is a natural consequence of the stiffer competition for scarce business talent, and paying huge executive salaries adds to stockholder value. But as the difference between the average worker’s salary and executive grows wider each year, critics argue that whether they increase productivity or…
Public corporation CEO compensation has been considered excessive in the United States for decades. What these CEOs make is easy to determine, because publicly traded companies are required to disclose the information. Among the groups that have complained most loudly are those who believe CEOs make little contribution to American society. Why should a CEO…
With 89% of S&P 500 companies reporting CEO compensation for 2021 as of the end of April for the 2022 proxy season, we used the CompanyIQ® executive compensation database to analyze elements of CEO compensation, median employee compensation, and CEO pay ratios. Key findings include: $18.5 M = Average CEO Total Compensation $1.2 M =…
A review of R3000 CEO pay in 2021 indicates that: Eleven CEOs at ten Russell 3000 companies earned more than $100 million in 2021 Jeff Green, CEO of Trade Desk, earned the highest reported pay package of nearly $835 million The average total compensation for CEOs making over $100 million was $309 million The average…
Using Company® compensation data, the Wall Street Journal looks at the biggest CEO pay package. Below is an excerpt from the article by Theo Francis. The head of advertising-technology company Trade Desk Inc. received a pay package last year that the company valued at more than $800 million—and which could leave him holding billions of…
Using our CompanyIQ® compensation database, we analyzed the top pay elements of S&P 500 CEO compensation based on the 368 2021 year-to-date (YTD) proxies released as of 4/18/22. With nearly three-quarters of companies reporting, we looked at the following three elements of CEO pay as well as total compensation and found that: The average S&P…
CEO pay has been described as obscenely high by investors, worker activists, and the press. How, these groups ask, can one person be worth millions or even tens of millions of dollars in compensation each year? Asked another way, how can one person be paid so much more than company employees? For example, Aptiv Plc…
The amount of money America CEOs make has been called obscene. It is often many hundred times what their employees earn. The trend has been particularly criticized at public corporations that pay people little more than the locally mandated minimum wage. This has included, in the recent past, such operations as McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Walmart….
With two-thirds of the S&P 500 reporting 2021 CEO compensation as of April 11, 2022, we can see which companies are in the 1,000+ CEO pay ratio club. There are 13 so far with David Zaslav at the newly merged Warner Bros. Discovery leading the group. Using our CompanyIQ® executive compensation database, we analyzed the…