This Is America's Highest Paid CEO at $280 Million

Chief executive officers are the highest-ranking corporate executives, and their compensation often reflects as much. Across the 350 largest companies in the United States, the average CEO made $14.5 million in 2019. All things being equal, it would take the typical American about 400 years to earn that much.

Not all CEOs are compensated equally, however. At some of America’s largest companies, chief executives make well more than double the amount the typical CEO earns, or hundreds of times more than most of the people who work for them. READ MORE

Vaccine Volunteers: Is “Thank You” Sufficient Compensation?

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires employers to pay nonexempt employees at least minimum wage for all hours worked up to 40 hours in a workweek and time and one-half for all hours worked over 40 hours in the same workweek. An exception to this rule exists for volunteers, who are not categorized as “employees” under the statute. Typically, volunteers are individuals who donate their time to non-profit, civic, religious, and other charitable organizations. READ MORE

CFO aligns incentives using profits interest ownership structure

When Goodroot's leadership team sought to link the fortunes of its affiliate companies together, CFO Jim Harper took several days off to consider the challenge.

Goodroot operates like a private equity firm, incubator, and back-office support provider for companies that try to reduce healthcare costs, whether by correcting improper medical billing, aligning incentives between pharmaceutical companies and payers, or by some other means.  READ MORE

Pay Freezes Were Common in 2020; Employers Stay Cautious with 2021 Budgets

nly 64 percent of U.S. organizations gave base pay increases in 2020, down from 82 percent that raised salaries in 2019, new research shows.

The results were reported in February by compensation data and software firm PayScale in its 2021 Compensation Best Practices Report, and are based on more than 5,000 responses from compensation managers at U.S. and Canadian companies surveyed from November 2020 to January 2021. READ MORE

You’re Not Paid Based on Your Performance

Take a moment and think about your salary and wages. Your bonuses. Your stock options. What explains how much (or how little) you make? Is it your education? Your experience or seniority? Your organization’s performance, the cost of living in your area, your occupation, or your own individual performance? READ MORE

What Will it Take to Close the Gender Pay Gap for Good?

Even at the highest-ranking positions in U.S. corporations, it’s clear there's more work to be done to narrow the gender pay gap--and the gender gap overall.

In the topmost roles of the C-suite, men outnumber women by 7 to 1, and the women that do hold these top positions earn only 85 cents for every dollar earned by men, according to the most recent proxy disclosures by Russell 3000 companies. As shown in the chart below, these numbers are only fractionally better than they were five years ago. READ MORE

Big Texas Corporations Demand Storm Survivors Go Without Pay

First they had to deal with a nightmare of a winter storm, an historic assault that wiped out their power, heat, water, or all three at once.

Now they have to deal with bosses denying them pay. READ MORE

Overpaying family members is dangerous

Founders and business owners must never toy around with a family member’s remuneration package. It is a very sensitive topic as it involves money. Paying them less than what they are capable of doing is not just downright dangerous but can compromise relationships among siblings and relatives. On the other hand, paying excessive compensation to those who are not deserving can demoralize non-family employees, inevitably leading to higher attrition rate and poor performance. Unless business owners confront pain points over compensation, this problem will continue to sow division within the enterprise. READ MORE

Progressives think $15 minimum wage will be in Biden’s COVID-19 package

Leading progressive Democrats are expressing confidence that President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package will include a provision setting the federal minimum wage at $15 per hour.

In a statement released over the weekend, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he was optimistic that the Senate parliamentarian would permit the change. READ MORE

SEC Settlement Invokes Rarely Used Sarbanes-Oxley Act Provision Requiring Reimbursement of Incentive Compensation

On Feb. 2, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a cease-and-desist order settling charges against the former CEO and CFO of WageWorks Inc. (WageWorks, or the Company),[1] stemming from the Company’s restatement of financial results, in which the SEC invoked a rarely used provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to obtain reimbursement of incentive-based compensation earned by the executives.

Section 304 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX 304) permits the SEC to order the disgorgement of bonuses and incentive-based compensation earned by the CEO and CFO in the year following the filing of any financial statement that the issuer is required to restate because of misconduct, and the reimbursement of those funds to the issuer.[2] The provision provides: READ MORE

Time To Dump The ‘Eat What You Kill’ Compensation Model

It’s surprising how often we see professional services firms get in their own way when it comes to driving new business and deepening partnerships with existing clients.

A primary culprit for this is outdated compensation practices that reward individuals over the team. This approach may have worked well 10 or 20 years ago but is no longer aligned with the need for services firms to harness all of their internal resources to better serve their increasingly global and complex clientele. READ MORE

25 highest paid hedge fund managers made $32 billion in 2020, a new record

The 25 highest paid hedge fund managers made a record $32 billion in 2020, up more than 50% over 2019, according to Institutional Investor’s Rich List. READ MORE

Publix joins a growing list of grocers offering incentives for workers to get vaccinated

Publix joined a growing list of US grocers and retailers offering incentives to workers who get the Covid-19 vaccine.

The popular Southern supermarket chain said it is offering its employees $125 gift cards when they sign up and show proof of vaccination. READ MORE

Retail giants like Walmart, Amazon, and Kroger are firing shots over rivals' minimum wages.

Massive retailers have stayed mostly quiet about looming minimum wage increases. 

But they have more to say when it comes to taking shots at the competition. 

When Walmart announced on Thursday it was raising some workers' wages, rival grocery chain Kroger was quick to have a response.  READ MORE

Google to evaluate executives on diversity and inclusion

Alphabet Inc's Google will evaluate the performance of its vice presidents and above on team diversity and inclusion starting this year, the company said on Friday in one of several responses to concerns about its treatment of a Black scientist.

Timnit Gebru, co-leader of Google's ethical artificial intelligence research team, said in December that Google abruptly fired her after she criticized its diversity efforts and threatened to resign. READ MORE

Equity compensation in a pandemic world

COVID-19 has impacted every company. Whether it is a direct impact on short or even long-term revenues or disruption to day-to-day operations, the pandemic's reach is vast. Most businesses have been forced to adapt in some way. For many, it has been a change in where or how they get work done. For some, it is a complete re-imagining of their value proposition to meet wholly new customer needs.

At the center of this period of disruption, and inseparable from your company's ability to navigate it successfully, are your employees. READ MORE

State Individual Income Tax Rates and Brackets for 2021

Individual income taxes are a major source of state government revenue, accounting for 38 percent of state tax collections.[1] Their prominence in public policy considerations is further enhanced in that individuals are actively responsible for filing their income taxes, in contrast to the indirect payment of sales and excise taxes. READ MORE

Walmart just boosted pay to $15. It's not what you think

Walmart announced pay bumps Thursday that will bring its average hourly wage to over $15 an hour. But the move still falls short of the $15 minimum wage announced by some of its largest competitors.

Walmart, America's largest private employer, said it will raise wages for 425,000 US workers -- more than a fourth of its workforce -- to at least $13 an hour. READ MORE

Executive compensation: 2021 and beyond

COVID-19 is causing “unprecedented, negative economic impacts in an accelerated fashion,” comments Alvarez & Marsal. 

“Many experts, furthermore, believe that the coronavirus crisis is just getting started, and that the countermeasures that are causing such negative economic impacts may last not for weeks, but for months or longer. Whether engaged in the airline, hotel, restaurant, physical fitness, cruise line, retail, oil and gas, or any other industry, significant impacts will flow through all sectors, with few, if any, insulated from the downturn.” READ MORE

How to design CEO pay to punish iniquity, not just reward virtue

IF BUSINESS HAD a Moses, “Thou shalt link pay to performance” would be on his tablet. Compensation committees have, however, tended to stick to a narrow reading of the commandment. Whereas they reward good behavior, deterring the bad is an afterthought. Worried that this may lead bosses to adopt a mentality of “heads we win, tails shareholders lose”, boards are rethinking their priorities—partly in response to pressure from regulators and investors, but also to shifting social winds. Perfectly balanced incentives remain as elusive as the promised land. Still, measures designed to ensure that misconduct does not pay are becoming central to the debate about how to craft bosses’ salary plans. READ MORE