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Pay Equity Among Top 15 C-Suite Executives

December 3, 2014

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What is the Ratio of CEO Pay to Executives?

The pending CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio rule by the SEC has brought the discussion regarding pay equity to the forefront. Although most companies do not consider the median worker’s pay when setting the chief executive’s pay, comparison among top level executives is a subject that many compensation committees factor into their decisions.

Pay Equity Between Executive

Equilar analyzed the ratio of CEO pay to that of the 15 highest paid individuals at 289 companies in the S&P 500 using data from its Executive Compensation Survey. The findings, recently cited in The Wall Street Journal, indicated that the median ratio of the CEO to the 2nd highest paid executive was 2.53, whereas the median ratio of the CEO to the 15th highest paid executive was 9.49.

Between the 2nd and 15th highest paid executives, the ratios rose fairly consistently throughout the sample of companies. Besides the difference between the top CEO and the next highest paid executive, there were no ratio changes exceeding 0.77 at the median. See the chart below for all of the ratios.