CEO pay rises in 2011, workers struggle for jobs

USA Today:

As companies get healthier, employees' average pay rises and stock prices soar, 2011 brought a year of slight raises for CEOs. While another year of raises comes off one of the biggest increases ever for executive pay in 2010, it wasn't the bonanza CEOs have seen in prior years. Meanwhile, unemployment remains high for most workers.

The annual reporting season for executive pay is in high gear. So far, the tally shows the median CEO pay in 2011 rose 2% to $9.6 million, based on 138 Standard & Poor's 500 companies that have reported CEO pay this year and that had the same CEO for all of 2010 and 2011, according to the USA TODAY analysis of data from GMI Ratings on proxies that have already been filed.

A 2% raise in 2011 might not seem like much, given some of the double-digit raises CEOs have gotten in years past and given that S&P 500 corporate profit rose 15% in 2011. But this latest raise in CEO pay comes just one year after the captains of American business saw their haul climb back toward pre-recession levels thanks to one of their biggest increases in pay in years.

Meanwhile, CEO pay continues to escalate even as companies only slowly add to their payrolls. Despite some hiring growth, the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high at 8.3% in February. Employees are starting to see some wage growth, too. Average weekly earnings for all employees rose 2.7% in 2011, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Real average weekly earnings, which are adjusted for inflation, though, have fallen 1.2% from the October 2010 peak through February, the latest data available.

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