Monday August 30, 5:35 pm Eastern Time
Pay gap between U.S. CEOs, workers widened - study
WASHINGTON, Aug 30 (Reuters) - The pay gap between top U.S. executives and workers grew
sharply during the 1990s, according to a pro-labor study released on Monday.
The study said if production workers' pay had kept pace with the compensation of chief
executives officers (CEOs) between 1990 and 1998, the average worker would now earn
$110,399 per year instead of $29,267.
It also said that the minimum hourly wage would be $22.08 -- not $5.15 -- and that the U.S. pay
gap dwarfs that of other countries.
In 1998 the executive-to-worker pay ratio in Japan was about 20 to 1 with an annual average CEO pay of $420,855. It was 35 to 1 in
Britain with average CEO pay of $645,540.
In the United States, an average CEO makes 419 times more than an average worker.
''American culture places no limits on what is considered appropriate compensation for top executives,'' the study said.
''A Decade of Executive Excess: The 1990s,'' the sixth annual executive compensation survey, was conducted by the Institute for
Policy Studies in Washington and United for a Fair Economy in Boston.
The study said chief executives at America's 365 largest corporations took home compensation packages averaging $10.6 million in
1998.
That figure represents a 36 percent jump between 1997 and 1998. During the same period, workers saw their pay rise an average 2.7
percent.
The study attributes 80 percent of the top executives' pay to popular stock options. Salaries and bonuses accounted for 20 percent" |
