The average employee in the US will have to work 331 years to earn the annual salary of an average Fortune 500 CEO, according to the AFL-CIO’s 2013 Executive Paywatch.
The ratio of CEO pay to worker pay has increased by more than 500 percent in the last thirty years. In 1983, the average CEO made 46 times the average worker's pay packet. The ratio quadrupled through the decade to 195 times in 1993. Highly paid CEOs of companies employing low wage earners are fueling economic inequality, which continues to grow.
The CEO salary data was sourced from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data for the latest fiscal years, covering around 3,000 corporations, most listed in the Russell 3000 Index.
America is considered to be the land of opportunity, however in recent decades, corporate CEOs have been taking a greater share of the economic pie. The wage of chief executives is constantly growing, while the salary of the average worker has stagnated and unemployment remains high.
A separate study by Equilar for AP, says that the typical CEO now makes 257 times the average worker's salary, soaring from 181 times in 2009. Moreover the average employee experienced a 1.3 percent salary rise in 2013 against 8.8 percent of an employer. The study based on 337 companies’ data, showed that the median pay package of top US CEOs in 2013 has hit $10.5 million.