U.S. CEOs get biggest pay raise since 2013

Typical boss at a corporation got an 8.5-per-cent raise in 2016, reflecting stock bump

NEW YORK— The typical CEO at the biggest U.S. companies got an 8.5per-cent raise last year, raking in $11.5 million in salary, stock and other compensation, according to a study by executive data firm Equilar for The Associated Press. That’s the biggest raise in three years.

The bump reflects how well stocks have done under these CEOs’ watch.

Boards of directors increasingly require that CEOs push their stock price higher to collect their maximum possible payout, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index returned 12 per cent last year.

Over the last five years, median CEO pay in the survey has jumped by 19.6 per cent, not accounting for inflation. That’s nearly double the 10.9-per-cent rise in the typical weekly paycheque for full-time employees across the U.S.

Other measures that would highlight the income gap between CEOs and typical workers are on the way, but governance watchdogs worry that Congress will kill or dilute their strength.

“It’s all out of whack right now,” said Heather Slavkin Corzo, director of the AFL-CIO Office of Investment, which says CEOs for major U.S. companies make 347 times more than the average worker.

The highest-paid executive in the survey was Thomas Rutledge of Charter Communications, which absorbed Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks last year to become the nation’s second-largest cable operator.

His compensation totalled $98 million (U.S.), about $88 million of that from stock and option awards included as part of a new five-year employment agreement.