Wage Growth is Just Fine (if you’re the CEO)

via ISS:

ISS Corporate Solutions, Inc., a leading provider of compensation and governance tools and advisory services to help companies improve shareholder value and reduce risk, today announced findings from an analysis of U.S. CEO pay figures for companies reporting their financials through April 13, 2015.

Nationally, an analysis of ExecComp Analytics data finds total median CEO pay jumped 12.7 percent, fueled principally by large increases in the “Change in Pension and Nonqualified Deferred Earnings” segment, most often driven by actuarial increases in the value of executive pensions.  Among these companies, average CEO total grant-date pay (including changes in pension values) totaled $6,433,296, compared with $5,538,002 for the previous year. Excluding pension changes and among these companies with early proxy statement filings, the median increase in total CEO compensation was 7.2 percent. 

The analysis looked at more than one-third of Russell 3,000 companies (1,211) where the CEO’s tenure spanned a minimum two year period. Within this universe, 791 company CEOs, or roughly two-thirds of the total, saw a pay increase for fiscal 2014, a two percentage point increase over the previous period.

…and you were worried about wage growth. Don’t worry, it’s handled!