The EPI article CEO compensation surged 14% in 2019 to $21.3 million – CEOs now earn 320 times as much as a typical worker by Lawrence Mishel and Jori Kandra (8/18/2020) provides a detailed analysis of CEO pay. There are 6 charts/tables in the article with data as well as 9 key findings such as:
Over the last three decades, compensation grew far faster for CEOs than it did for other very highly paid workers (the top 0.1%, or those earning more than 99.9% of wage earners).
Even though CEO compensation grew much faster than the earnings of the top 0.1% of wage earners, that doesn’t mean the top 0.1% did not fare well. Quite the contrary. The inflation-adjusted annual earnings of the top 0.1% grew 337% from 1978 to 2018. CEO compensation, however, grew three times as fast!
Over the last three decades, CEO compensation increased more relative to the pay of other very-high-wage earners than did the wages of college graduates relative to the wages of high school graduates.
