Average CEO Pay: $12 million

[liberal N proud]

Apparently, it doesn’t take much of an economic rebound to send CEO pay heading skyward again. Average CEO pay fell in 2008 and 2009, ending 2009 at a little over $10 million. This year, median CEO compensation rose an impressive 35 percent, according to a preliminary survey from Governance Metrics International. Average CEO pay rose 18 percent, indicating that the raises were widespread rather than being restricted to just a few lucky CEOs.

While 2010’s “average” CEO pay of almost $12 million seems quite generous in a country that is still facing a 8.7 percent unemployment rate, the highest-paid CEOs did much better, with two making more than $50 million.

The Governance Metrics study looks at 600 CEOs, and notes that because not all companies have filed their proxies yet, the list of the highest-paid may turn out to be incomplete. Nonetheless, the stats that have been compiled so far are impressive. The ten highest-paid CEOs are:

1.Robert A. Iger, of The Walt Disney Company. Total realized compensation: $54,917,238
2.George Paz of Express Scripts Inc. Total realized compensation: $51,523,934
3.Lew Frankfort of Coach Inc. Total realized compensation: $49,451,967
4.Ray R. Irani of Occidental Petroleum Corp. Total realized compensation: $47,102,629.
5.Ralph Lauren of Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. Total realized compensation: $42,995,222
6.John C. Martin of Gilead Sciences Inc. Total realized compensation: $42,719,516
7.John T. Chambers of Cisco Systems Inc. Total realized compensation: $37,896,888
8.Ivan G. Seidenberg of Verizon Communications. Total realized compensation: $37,009,754
9.Samuel J. Palmisano of International Business Machines Corp. Total realized compensation: $36,854,766
10.David E.I. Pyott of Allergan, Inc. Total realized compensation: $35,269,232

http://www.bnet.com/blog/business-research/average-ceo-pay-12-million/1649

[kentuck]

1. Nobody deserves those salaries.

It is robbery from someone else.

[customerserviceguy]

2. In the case of Coach

the victims willingly hand it over. I cannot understand paying $200-300 for a purse made with $29.95 worth of materials and labor in a third-world country.