Executive “Pay for Performance” Becomes More Than a Slogan

For several years now, companies have been generously rewarding their top executives with ever-growing salaries and stock options. Option grants climbed by 20 to 40 percent per year for nearly a decade.

Meanwhile, CEOs at America’s 500 largest public companies received average pay raises of 22 percent in 2003, according to a survey by The Corporate Library research firm. CEO pay increased 10 times faster than the pay of the average American worker, which went up by a mere 2.2 percent in 2003, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labo.....