CEO compensation skyrockets while workers’ pay barely keeps up

Executive total compensation surged nearly 13% in 2023, outpacing both inflation and worker pay increases.

By Mark Kreidler, Capital & Main

Private sector workers gutted it out in 2023. Their overall compensation rose 4.1%, according to data reported last week by The Associated Press—just enough to keep pace with inflation after getting pounded by rising costs the year before.

Corporate executives, on the other hand, had a field day. The study, a collaboration between the AP and the research firm Equilar, found that median total compensation among S&P 500 CEOs in 2023 rose 12.6%, more than three times the rate of inflation and their workers’ increases.

Leading the way were Silicon Valley tech and entertainment giants. Broadcom Inc. CEO Hock E. Tan topped the list, with a pay package valued at about $162 million. William J. Lansing, CEO of Fair Isaac Corp. (better known as FICO), took in $66.3 million, while Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos’ pay package was $49.8 million.

Apple CEO Tim Cook’s total compensation was $63.2 million—yet it represented a 36% decline from 2022, in part because Cook’s deal that year was loudly criticized by some Apple shareholders.

The median pay package for the CEOs last year was $16.3 million, according to the study assembled by Equilar. At half of the companies surveyed, a worker at the mid-level pay scale would need almost 200 years to earn what the CEO made in a year.