21 Apr, 2014
Extravagant CEO pay doesn’t reflect performance – it’s all about status | The Observer
Even American eyes are starting to pop at the sheer extravagance of executive pay. Last week, the New York Times published its annual league table of chief executive pay at the US’s top 100 publicly quoted companies. The average has now climbed to $13.9m (£8.3m).
That is nearly twice the average of £4.4m for CEOs within Britain’s top 100. But since America’s top 100 companies are, on average, around three times larger in terms of turnover than our own, one could argue that executives are even better paid in Britain.
A growing number of US commentators are asking, as are some of the braver remuneration consultants, just why executives in America need to be paid so much. The LA Times, for example, headlined one opinion piece “Obscenely high salaries are stark reminders of US wealth gap”. The NYT talked about the dark side of executive pay driving US inequality. What do these men – and 91 of the 100 are men – actually do with so much money?
Read the rest: Extravagant CEO pay doesn’t reflect performance – it’s all about status | Will Hutton | Comment is free | The Observer.
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