A 30% raise? Check out the graph... While this is happening, American 'workers' are getting a 3% raise if they are lucky. Is this disparity a problem or just an annoyance?
Another Boost for the Boss Compensation Rises Again
As CEOs Get Lavish Packages For Coming, Going or Staying
December 12, 2005
Criticism of lavish executive pay -- from shareholders, regulators and elected officials -- is on the rise again. But so too are pay deals. These days, it seems, corporate leaders are getting paid unusual sums for coming, going or even staying put. In addition to the millions it offered Mr. Zafirovski, for example, Nortel is also paying his predecessor, William Owens, more than $5 million in severance.
"Salaries are frothy again. Retention packages are compelling. And buying newcomers out of noncompetes is de rigueur," says Hal Reiter, chairman and CEO of New York recruiters Herbert Mines Associates Inc.
Total compensation for CEOs at 1,522 big U.S. companies rose a median of 30% last year to $2.4 million, double the 15% increase for 2003, according to researchers The Corporate Library in Portland, Maine. The figure includes salary, bonus, restricted stock grants, gains from exercising options and payouts from long-term incentive plans.
Compensation keeps rising despite ongoing complaints that executives are paid too much. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox wants improved disclosure of pay deals in corporate proxy statements. Democrats in Congress are pushing a similar measure. At a packed Senate hearing on high gas prices last month, California Democrat Barbara Boxer displayed a chart comparing last year's multimillion-dollar bonuses for three oil-industry CEOs to the annual pay -- $10,712 -- a minimum-wage worker makes in the U.S.
