The nation’s median salary in 2011 was $39,312. The average CEO pay was $9.6 million.
According to a study by the Associated Press, CEOs are being paid more than ever before. The average pay was about 6% compared to 2010 and was the highest figure since the AP started keeping track in 2006.
The AP reports that several company’s cut back in cash bonuses. But the average pay still increased since those cash bonuses were replaced with stock awards. The typical CEO received about $3.6 million in stock awards last year.
David Simon of Simon Properties received a $137 million pay package in 2011. Nearly all of that came from stock awards.
Seattle PI reports that it would take a person making minimum wage more than 9000 years to earn $137 million. Someone making the national median of $39,312 could achieve the same feat in just 3,498 years.
If you break Simon’s pay down by the hour and you assume that he works a 60-hour work week, the Simons Property CEO makes $43,963.64 (more than the median yearly salary) every hour. A minimum wage worker would have to toil for three years to make what Simon does in an hour.
But Simon is at the top of the scale. So let’s look at the median CEO pay. It would take a person making an average salary 244 years to make what the average CEO made in 2011 and it would take a month to make what the average CEO made in an hour ($3,072).
Simon, of course, isn’t the only one making an absurdly large paycheck. Leslie Moonves of CBS took home $68 million, David Zaslav of Discovery Communications took home $52 million, and Philippe Duaman of Viacom took home $43 million. Moonves, Zaslav, and Duaman were among the top 5 highest paid CEOs in 2010 and this year.
