CEO compensation at the top 350 largest companies skyrocketed 997 percent between 1978 and 2014, compared to 10.9 percent for the typical worker, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning Washington, D.C., think tank. The ratio between the two has increased from 30:1 in 1978 to 303:1 last year, with chief executives now making an average of $16.3 million a year, compared to $56,400 for workers.
The Boston Globe
August 6, 2015
A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-affiliated think tank, found that CEOs of large public companies on average earn more than 10 times what they did 30 years ago, far outstripping the pay rise of even highly skilled workers during the period.
Larry Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, said the proposal should help highlight what he called both the sharply increasing pay levels for executives, disparities with the rank-and-file and a growing disconnect between executive pay and performance. Further, he said, the rule’s influence should affect the wider economy by forcing pay levels down. “I used to think this was symbolic,” he said. “But the fact is, the pay of people in publicly held companies drives the executive pay market — for people in privately held firms, for universities, for hospitals.”
Los Angeles Times
August 6, 2015
Average CEO pay at the 350 largest U.S. companies by revenue surged 997 percent from 1978 to 2014, while the compensation of non-supervisory employees rose 10.9 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a research group that advocates for workers.
Bloomberg
August 6, 2015
The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, calculates the current CEO-to-worker pay ratio to be in the neighborhood of 300:1; in 1978, it was 30:1.
The Atlantic
August 6, 2015
A study by the Economic Policy Institute earlier this year found that in 2014, chief executive pay was 303 times higher than the average worker’s pay. EPI president Lawrence Mishel applaud the new rule, noting that the compensation of top CEOs grew nearly 1,000 percent from 1978 to 2014 and accounted for the “doubling of the income shares of the top 1.0 percent and top 0.1 percent of U.S. households from 1979 to 2007.”
Salon
August 6, 2015
According to a recent Economic Policy Institute analysis, 50 years ago, CEOs were paid roughly 20 times as much as their employees — compared to 2013, when the average CEO made close to 300 times as much as their employees.
New York Magazine
August 6, 2015
Last month, the Economic Policy Institute released a report confirming those suspicions. The institute determined that last year CEOs earned about 300 times more than their employees. Fifty years ago, in an era of exceptional economic growth, they earned roughly 20 times as much as their workers.
Vice News
August 6, 2015
The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning research group that receives some union funding, said last year that CEO pay at large companies had grown 997% from 1978 to 2014, to an average of $16.3 million at 350 large U.S. firms. The ratio between CEO pay and workers, EPI said, has grown from 30-to-1 in 1978 to 303-to-1 in 2014.
Buzzfeed
August 6, 2015
“The new CEO pay ratio rule will shed important light on this issue. This is an important advance, which will be useful to investors, workers and policymakers,” Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, said in a statement Wednesday. “The delay shows the power of corporate lobbyists, but the finalizing of the rule is a win for the American people.”
U.S. News and World Report
August 6, 2015
CEO compensation has exploded over the past 50 years according to research by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a progressive think tank with ties to the American labor movement. Whereas CEOs at America’s largest companies made 20 times what their workers earned in 1965, by 2014 the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio had shot up to 303.4. EPI President Lawrence Mishel told Al Jazeera that high CEO pay helps to drive pay disparities across the economy. “I used to think this was a symbolic issue, but the fact is that there are 20,000 to 25,000 executives whose pay is listed in SEC filings,” said Mishel. “And the pay of these executives sets a marker that is followed by firms that don’t sell stock on the open market, privately held firms. It’s driven up the wages of university presidents, people in the nonprofit sector, including hospitals, and the pay of people in other managerial positions.”
Al Jazeera America
August 6, 2015