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CEO Pay Surged as Economy Tanked During COVID Pandemic

A new report shows that while the economy was brought to its knees by the coronavirus pandemic, CEOs at the 300 largest companies earned 15 % more on average.

The Covid-19 pandemic was an economic nightmare for many Americans, but CEOs in the top 300 companies actually earned more than the previous year. According to the Wall Street Journal, executives earned a mean annual compensation of $13.7 million in 2020, up from $12.8 million the previous year, even as many boards of directors scoffed at the compensation packages. The Journal’s analysts found that the pay among the chief executives was boosted by the stock market rebound and in some cases pay rose by 15 percent while unemployment surged for the rest of the working class. Some CEOs did take pay cuts during the worst of the pandemic, but as the Journal points out, salary generally accounts for only about 10 percent of most big company CEO compensation packages.