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CEOs at S&P 500 Firms Saw $800K Pay Hike in 2018; Workers Left in the Dust

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It’s good to be CEO.

Compensation for chief executive officers (CEOs) running at S&P 500 firms jumped by 7% last year, or approximately $800,000.

Overall, salaries for CEOs grew to a median of $12 million last year, including salary, stock and other compensation, according to data analyzed by Equilar for The Associated Press.

Each year, the Equilar 100 examines CEO compensation at the largest companies by revenue to provide an early look at executive pay trends. The study includes companies that filed annual proxy statements before March 31, considered the “half-way” point in the annual proxy season.

“The eight-figure packages continue to rise as companies tie more of their CEOs’ pay to their stock prices, which are still near record levels, and as profits hit an all-time high last year due to lower tax bills and a still-growing economy,” noted AP. “Pay for typical workers at these companies isn’t rising nearly as quickly. The median increase was 3% last year, less than half the growth for the top bosses. Median means half were larger, and half were smaller.”

Naturally, not everyone is pleased to see these numbers. “It’s a natural thing for a CEO and a board to say, ‘How are others who are doing similar work paid?’ And there’s a natural sense that if the board believes and supports their CEO, they don’t expect their CEO to be paid less than the others in the industry,” Eric Hosken, a partner at Compensation Advisory Partners, a consulting firm that works with boards, told AP.

“Anger about widening income inequality is rising around the world, from Capitol Hill to protests in streets,” the AP story continued. “But it’s only slowly seeping into the conference rooms where boards of directors set the pay for CEOs. Boards are often more concerned with what a competitor may pay to poach their CEO than how much more that person makes versus the rest of the workforce.”

Median pay for Equilar 100 CEOs overall was $15.6 million in fiscal year 2018, in comparison to $15.7 million for the CEOs on the previous year’s list, the company reported. On an individual level, Equilar 100 CEOs saw a 0.6% pay decrease at the median in fiscal year 2018. By comparison, median pay for CEOs on last year’s Equilar 100 list increased by 5%.

Women represent less than 10% of Equilar 100 CEOs. Just nine women hold a chief executive position at an Equilar 100 company, this is an increase from eight in 2017. Among the nine, three are on the top 20 highest-paid on the list. Safra Catz of Oracle, third on the list, was awarded $108.3 million in 2018. Indra Nooyi—who made the top 10 highest-paid list in the previous year’s study—departed as CEO of Pepsi, leaving Catz as the only women on the top 10 highest-paid list this year.

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