High CEO pay doesn’t mean high performance

http://www.kansascity.com/news/business/workplace/article326122/High-CEO-pay-doesn%E2%80%99t-mean-high-performance-report-says.html

By DIANE STAFFORD
08/28/2013

A select group of the nation’s corporate chief executives has been paid far more than their performance warranted, according to a compensation analysis released today.

Twenty years after the Institute for Policy Studies began taking critical annual looks at CEO pay in the nation’s largest companies, researchers reviewed the personal and corporate histories of executives who have appeared on past highest-paid lists.

The title of the 2013 report reveals disappointment — “Bailed Out. Booted. Busted.”

Nearly 40 percent of the men who appeared on lists ranking America’s 25 highest-paid corporate leaders between 1993 and 2012 have led companies bailed out by U.S. taxpayers, been fired for poor performance or led companies charged with fraud-related activities.

“This report should put an end to any remaining sense that we have ‘pay for performance’ in corporate America,” said Sarah Anderson, co-author of all 20 of the institute’s annual executive compensation reports.

The pay gap between large-company CEOs and average American employees has vaulted from 195 to 1 in 1993 to 354 to 1 in 2012, according to data published by BusinessWeek and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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