Executive Excess 2007
The Staggering Social cost of U.S. Business Leadership
United for a Fair Economy
Key Findings
1. CEOs v. Workers
The Pay Gap
• CEOs of large U.S. companies last year made as much money from just one day on the job as average workers made over the entire year. These top executives averaged $10.8 million in total compensation, over 364 times the pay of the average American worker, a calculation based on data from an Associated Press survey of 386 Fortune 500 companies.
• The private equity boom has pushed the pay ceiling for American business leaders considerably further into the economic stratosphere. The top 20 private equity and hedge fund managers, Forbes magazine estimates, pocketed an average $657.5 million, or 22,255 times the pay of an average U.S. worker.
• Workers at the bottom rung of the U.S. economy have just received the first federal minimum wage increase in a decade. But the new minimum wage of $5.85 still stands 7 percent below where the minimum wage stood a decade ago in real terms. CEO pay, over that same decade, has increased by roughly 45 percent.
The Pension and Perks Gap
• CEOs at major American corporations enjoyed, on average, $1.3 million in pension gains last year. By contrast, only 58.5 percent of American households led by a 45-to-54-year old even had a retirement account in 2004, the most recent year with data. Between 2001 and 2004, the retirement accounts of these average households gained only $3,775 in value per year.
• CEOs of S&P 500 companies, according to Corporate Library data, retire with an average $10.1 million in their Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan, just one type of special account large American companies routinely set up for their top executives. But most Americans now move into their retirement years with no pension protection whatsoever. In 2004, only 36.3 percent of American households headed by an individual 65 or older held any type of retirement account. The accounts that did exist, on a per household basis, averaged only $173,552 in value, a miniscule 1.7 percent of the dollars in the supplemental accounts set aside for America’s top CEOs.
• The top 386 CEOs took in perks worth an average $438,342 in 2006. These perks ranged from using private company jets for personal travel to reimbursements for country club fees, commuter expenses, and even the extra taxes due on bonus income. A minimum wage worker would need to work for 36 years to earn the equivalent of what CEOs averaged just in perks last year.
2. U.S. Business Leaders v. Other U.S. Leaders
• Compensation for American business leaders now wildly dwarfs the pay that goes to leaders in other sectors of American society. The 20 highest-paid individuals at publicly traded corporations last year took home, on average, $36.4 million. That’s 38 times more than the 20 highest-paid leaders in the nonprofit sector and 204 times more than the 20 highest-paid generals in the U.S. military.
• The 20 highest-paid figures in the private equity and hedge fund industry collected 3,315 times more in average annual compensation in 2006 than the top 20 officials of the federal government’s executive branch, a group that includes the President of the United States.
3. U.S. Business Leaders v. European Business Leaders
• American business executives appreciably out-earn their European counterparts. In 2006, the 20 highest-paid European managers made an average of $12.5 million, only one third as much as the 20 highest-earning U.S. executives took home last year.
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