Jobs are being eliminated, the stock market craps game continues to adjust downward, but compensation for corporate CEOs in Minnesota continues to grow—a healthy 18% over the previous year—according to a story in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press. A companion story on the total compensation of corporate CEOs is also part of the package.
Median CEO compensation in 2001 (salary, bonuses, and long-term recompense) rose at a rate of 18% over 2000, with a median compensation rate of US$670,381. The median annual CEO salary alone grew by 9%, to US$374,450.
In a shocking—shocking, I tell you—turn, the failing stock market resulted in less money from exercised stock options, and the CEO combined incomes actually fell slightly. After all, stock options are only valuable if the stock price is rising.
To make matters for the CEOs even worse, median bonuses were down 16%—to US$119,841—mostly because the corporations failed to meet performance targets.
So, how is it that CEO compensation actually rose 18%? Most corporations simply raised the base pay for their CEOs. What a wonderful world it would be if the people who actually did the work were compensated in a similar manner. Here’s one of the key findings of the Pioneer Press survey:
“Base pay gains for CEOs handily outpaced wage gains for workers in general. Overall, U.S. wages and benefits rose 4.2 percent in 2001, below the 4.6 percent growth rate in 2000. Average workers also typically don’t receive bonuses and other perks that company leaders do. Look at the CEO mega-premium this way: If a factory worker’s average pay would have risen since 1960 at the same rate as a chief executive’s, that worker would be making $114,000 annually, instead of $23,000…. The minimum wage would be $24.13 instead of $5.15.”
0 responses. Comments closed for this article.