In a disastrous year, CEO pay fell just 0.08 percent
If you think corporate bigshots make too much money, then The Corporate Library has some good news and some bad news for you. The good news is that chief executives’ pay fell last year for the first time since the Library started doing analysis in 2002. The bad news? The median decline in annual pay was only 0.08 percent, and this during the worst economic downturn in at least 50 years.
Paul Hodgson, the Library’s senior research associate, comments:
CEOs have had many years of benefiting from the whole of the upside of a bull market, whether it was due to their superior management or not, but the whole of the downside of the bear market has been severely mitigated by discretionary bonuses, repriced stock options, mega grants of stock and options, negotiating generous new employment agreements, guaranteed bonuses, and “retention” awards.
Paraphrasing the words of Mark Twain, rumors of the death of CEO pay have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, far from falling on its face — like the economy did — it has barely stumbled in its steady climb.
The Corporate Library says its survey, covering 2,700 companies, is the most comprehensive one around. The median decline in “total realized compensation,” which includes gains on stock options, is a little bigger at 6.38 percent. That’s still not bad, though, compared with the losses suffered by stockholders and many employees.
(3 votes, average: 2.33 out of 5)
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David Nicklaus has covered St. Louis business for more than 25 years. His column appears three days a week on the Post-Dispatch business page. 
From the CEO viewpoint, it’s a matter of you lose, I stay the same or better and if you win, I also win. I have been saying for many years I want to see a forced independent Board of Directors for every publicly traded company. This would eliminate the you scratch my back (vote me a pay raise) on my board, and I’ll scratch yours (vote you a pay raise) on your board. Right now, it’s mostly a boy’s club with the situation I just mentioned where various executives are on each other’s boards.
I would be interested in seeing what the decrease or more likely increase is for Union wages. I hear and read stories all the time about Unions negotiating and threatening strikes if their demands of new contracts AUTOMATIC wage increases are not met. Funny how everyone is so angry at CEO’s and their guaranteed salaries and bonuses, when the Unions that everyone loves gets the very same thing.
MO Conservative,
Wages for union workers where I work have actually dropped a bit. They are tied to cost of living and when prices come down, so do the wages. BTW, we are talking less than a buck here, more like a couple of quarters.
What can I say? Thanks for tracking the issue and keeping us the public informed! Obviously nibody in DC cares about the obvious inequities and iniquities of our immoral capitalist leadership which is behavong more efficiently and shamlessly than the Mafia does. Keep the pressure on the establishment that is turning the US into one big ghetto rulrd not my morals but by greed and hate.