CEO pay at Minnesota’s Fortune 500 companies was 278 times more on average than the pay of median workers at their companies in 2018, an analysis of data from company proxy statements shows.
The Dodd Frank Act’s requirement that public companies report ratios of CEO-to-median worker pay, effective in 2018, was met with protest by many corporations, while labor advocates cheered the mandate as a window into what they deem excessive executive pay. In Minnesota, the ratios span a wide range, from 110-to-1 at agricultural cooperative CHS, Inc. to 767-to-1 at Target.
CEO pay in the United States has ballooned in the last several decades, increasing roughly 940% from 1978 to 2018 at the nation’s 350 largest companies, adjusted for inflation, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan, think tank. Meanwhile, wages of the typical worker have grown 11.9%. Back in 1978, CEOs made about 30 times more than the average worker, a ratio that has exploded since then. Continue reading.