NEW YORK – Although regular workers have won their biggest increase in decades, they seem small compared to what CEOs are getting.
The average compensation package for chief executives who run S&P 500 companies rose 17.1% last year, to a median of $ 14.5 million, according to data analyzed for Equilar’s The Associated Press.
The gain rises to a 4.4% increase in wages and benefits earned by private sector workers until 2021, the fastest on record in 2001. The increase also failed for many rank-and-file workers to keep pace with inflation. , which reached 7% at the end of last year.
The CEO’s salary rose as stock prices and earnings rose sharply as the economy roared from its brief recession in 2020. Since most of a CEO’s compensation is tied to such performance, their pay packages have plummeted after years of mostly moderate growth.
In many of the most attractive packages, such as Expedia Group, valued at $ 296.2 million and JPMorgan Chase’s $ 84.4 million, the boards have given particularly large grants of stock or stock options to recently appointed CEOs who have Navigate to their companies during a pandemic or to established leaders they want to convince to hang out.
CEOs are often unable to cash in on such stocks or options for many years, or possibly ever, unless the company meets performance targets. But companies must still disclose estimates of how much they cost. Only about a quarter of the standard pay package for all S&P 500 CEOs last year came as actual cash they could pocket.
Regardless of its composition, the salary gap between CEOs and the rank-and-file workers they oversee continues to widen. In half of the companies in this year’s salary survey, a worker in the middle of the company’s salary scale will need at least 186 years to do what their CEO did last year. That rose from 166 last year.
At Walmart, for example, the company said its median associate made $ 25,335 in compensation last year. That means half of its workers made more, and half made less.
That’s up 21% from $ 20,942 last year and comes as the company’s average hourly wage for U.S. associates rose from $ 14.50 in January 2021 to more than $ 17 at present. That increase is larger than CEO Doug McMillon’s increase, on a percentage basis. But his 13.7% increase gave him a total package worth $ 25.7 million.
Anger grows in such an imbalance. Surveys suggest that Americans in political parties see CEO salaries as too high, and some investors are pushing back.
Workers were trying to organize unions across the country, and the “Great Resignation” encouraged millions to quit to find better jobs elsewhere. The U.S. government counted more than 4 million quits in April 2021 alone, the first time that has happened. The monthly number topped 4.5 million twice.
Revenues for CEO salaries have slowed in recent years, with the median increase dropping from 8.5% in 2017 to 4.1% in 2019. It rose to 5% in 2020, which was a complex year as the pandemic closed the economy and the profits of many companies are stamped.
For 2020, many companies are rejigging the intricate formulas they have created to determine the salary of their CEOs. The repairs consisted of losses caused by the pandemic, something many boards said was an unusual event outside the CEO’s control.
Then came 2021. Thanks to the reopened economy, very low interest rates from the Federal Reserve and other factors, stock prices rose and the S&P 500 jumped nearly 27%, setting records. throughout the year. Revenues per share increased by approximately 50%.
Closer to the top of the rankings for CEO compensation last year was Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, whose compensation package worth $ 84.4 million was the fifth highest in the AP survey. That’s up 166.7% since last year, and most of it came from an award of stock options worth $ 52.6 million.
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