Average CEO earned 373 times average worker’s wage

The average CEO made 373 times what the average American worker did in 2014, according to an annual study by the AFL-CIO.

While that disparity seems extreme, it is less so than the disparity that existed in 2000 when CEOs were making 525 times more than the average worker. In 2013, CEOs took home 331 times what average workers were paid.

Brandon Rees, who works in the investment office of the AFL-CIO, said the corporate scandals of the 2000s, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the 2008 recession and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 all affected CEO compensation.

Last year the average CEO was paid $13.5 million, according to information that the union culled from proxy statements filed by public companies on the Russell Index. The average American worker was paid $36,134 in 2014, based on numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette