Another Gangbuster Year for CEO Pay

from Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality:



Another Gangbuster Year for CEO Pay
April 5, 2010 ⋅

Don’t be fooled by all the poor-mouthing around the latest annual executive pay surveys. With Washington dithering on CEO pay reform, chief execs still have plenty of reason to celebrate.

By Sam Pizzigati


The media heavy hitters have once again begun their annual spring deluge of executive compensation surveys. The Wall Street Journal released its numbers on 2009 top executive pay last Thursday, with the New York Times following suit on Sunday. In the days and weeks to come, USA Today, Forbes, and the Associated Press will be filling out the 2009 CEO pay story.

And what will be the basic storyline be? CEOs, says the Wall Street Journal, are feeling the recession pain. The median pay of the top 200 CEOs the Journal tracks dropped 0.9 percent last year, the first time big-time CEO take-home has dropped two years in a row since the Journal started keeping score back in 1989.

But this emerging my-how-the-mighty-have-fallen take on CEO compensation — Even CEOs hit hard in ‘09, headlined the New York Daily News last week — hardly tells the whole story. One reason: The Wall Street Journal stats only cover CEO compensation at the 200 top companies that filed required executive pay figures before the Journal’s pay survey deadline. Many more companies have yet to file.

The slight tail-off in typical big-time CEO pay the Journal has calculated for 2009 could, by the time all companies have filed, end up showing an overall CEO pay increase. Kodak, for instance, didn’t announce CEO pay figures for 2009 until last Wednesday, after the Journal deadline. Kodak CEO Antonio Perez over doubled his pay last year, from $4.4 million to $10.2 million. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://toomuchonline.org/another-gangbuster-year-for-ceo-pay/