LOS ANGELES, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) -- CEOs at the 350 largest U.S. companies received 312 times as much in compensation as typical employees in 2017, a study showed Thursday, noting that the income gap between CEO and employee is now at its highest point in a decade.
According to the latest study issued by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a Washington-based think tank, the average annual CEO pay surged to 18.9 million U.S. dollars in 2017, up 17.6 percent from 2016, while for the working class, wages remained by and large stagnant, with only a 0.3 percent rise.
The 2017 CEO-to-worker compensation ratio of 312-to-1 was far greater than the 20-to-1 ratio in 1965 and more than five times greater than the 58-to-1 ratio in 1989, the study said, adding that the ratio reached its peak of 344-to-1 in 2000.
This ratio was measured based on CEO income earned by stock options -- which include stock awards and cashed-in stock options -- as well as salary, bonuses, restricted stock grants, and long-term incentive payouts.
From 1978 to 2017, the study found, CEO compensation rose by 1,070 percent based on earnings realized through stock options, much greater than the 11.2 percent growth in the workers' compensation.
Moreover, during the same period, CEO compensation grew far faster than the 637-percent growth in the S&P 500 index.
"CEO pay continues to be very, very high and has grown far faster in recent decades than typical worker pay," the EPT said.
"Higher CEO pay does not reflect correspondingly higher output or better firm performance. Exorbitant CEO pay therefore means that the fruits of economic growth are not going to ordinary workers," it added.
