EXORBITANT EXECUTIVE PAY

US CEOs earn 262 times more than workers: study.

The labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimated that CEOs of major US firms were paid an average of 10.98 million dollars annually, including salary, bonuses, stock options and other compensation. That compared with average worker pay of 41,861 dollars.

Oh, that's only a small part of the story. Just take my own company, ranked just barely in the top 200 Fortune companies, where not only last year did the CEO earn more than $20 million, the COO also raked in a cool $20 million, and four more executives earned, together, about another $20 million. An additional 40 or so guys (and when I say guys, I do mean males) earned well in excess of $1 million each. And we haven't even touched on what they profited exercising stock options! (For instance, the COO made an additional $40 million exercising just HALF his options.)

Think about it. Six guys were paid a cumulative $60 million. And ten board members, who spend from 4-12 days a year (and that's a generous outside estimate) working for the company, are paid $300,000 for their trouble.

Don't get me wrong. I personally like nearly all of these people, most of whom I know either very or fairly well.

But there's something seriously wrong with this picture, especially when juxtaposed with Republican efforts to kill any boost in the minimum wage.

Tags: minimum wage, CEO pay