US CEO Salary Is At $1M Monthly, Workers Only Make 0.38% Of That

The unconscionable disparity in pay between CEOs of U.S. corporations and the average American worker is massive and obscene. The median monthly CEO pay at an S&P 500 company in 2018 was 256 times larger than the typical full-time American worker's monthly paycheck, said an analysis of CEO pay by The Wall Street Journal.

In numbers, this means the average U.S. CEO made $12.4 million in 2018, which means he took home a monthly paycheck of more than $1 million. In contrast, the median full-time, year-round American worker had annual earnings of only $46,881 in 2017 or $3,907 a month.

Median monthly worker pay varies widely across the U.S. but is well and truly pitiful. The lowest paid workers --- those in Mississippi -- made a measly $3,138 per month while the typical worker in Washington D.C. (the highest paid) took home a mere $5,891 a month.

The Wall Street Journal report also shows the median income for 132 CEOs of major U.S. corporations involved in its study actually rose by 6.4 percent in 2018 compared to 2017. These CEOs represent about a fourth of the S&P 500 firms for which figures have thus far been released.

The report also reveals that 2018 is the third consecutive year of record CEO pay in the United States. The WSJ confirms a similar study by the magazine Institutional Investor, which found that median CEO pay at major U.S. corporations has soared over the past four decades to $9.2 million in the early 2000s. This median pay was “only” $1.8 million in the 1980s and $4.1 million in the 1990s.

CEO pay has risen nearly 72 percent since its low point in 2009 during the Great Recession of 2008. It’s now only 3.3 percent below the record levels set in 2007.

U.S. CEO salary skyrocketed 17.6 percent between 2016 and 2017 alone, while average pay for workers rose by only 0.3 percent, said the Institutional Investor.

This growing disparity has worsened an already bad pay ratio between CEOs and workers. The ratio of CEO pay to the pay of the average worker ballooned to 312-1 in 2017.

This ratio stood at 20-1 in 1965; 30-1 in 1978; 58-1 in 1989; 112-1 in 1995 and a record 344-1 in 2000.

Among the most lavishly paid S&P 500 CEOs are Robert Iger, CEO of Walt Disney Company ($66 million); Richard Handler, CEO of Jefferies Financial Group ($44.7 million); and Stephen MacMillan, CEO of medical equipment maker Hologic Inc. ($42 million).

Among bankers, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase was the highest paid with $31 million. Brian Moynihan of Bank of America received $23 million. Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan saw his pay jump to $16.4 million.

Sloan even received his first-ever bonus, despite Wells Fargo’s stock plunging 24 percent due to scandal where the bank created millions of false accounts for customers.

Incredibly, their salaries pale in comparison to that of Nikesh Arora, a former Google executive who became CEO of Palo Alto Networks (a cybersecurity company), who was paid a staggering $125 million.